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I 



MARTIAL 



THE MODERNS 



BY 



ANDREW AMOS, ESQ. 

AUTHOR OF THE RUINS OF TIME, 
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF KING CHARLES II. *e. 



CAMBRIDGE : 

DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO. 

LONDON : BELL AND DALDY. 

1858. 







<&zxtibxtis$zt 

PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M. 
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 



PREFACE. 



This Book consists of a translation into English 
prose of select epigrams of Martial arranged under 
heads, with examples of the modern uses to which 
they have been applied. It is addressed to the few 
persons who may have similar tastes with the Author ; 
to them he hopes it may prove both agreeable and 
instructive. It is the confidence, fortified by past ex- 
perience, of the realization of such a hope which has 
imparted a charm to what otherwise would have been 
an unsocial literary enjoyment. The objects towards 
which this inquiry has been directed are, those of ascer- 
taining how much a classical author, whose works have 
fallen into neglect, may have contributed to forming 
the character and advancing the progress of English 
literature? how far the use of his writings, whether 
rational or pedantic, pertinent or misplaced, is illus- 
trative of the education, tastes, and modes of expression 
that have prevailed, at any period, among our eminent 
countrymen? to what extent we may reckon that a 
valuable portion of the compositions of our distinguished 

a 2 



IV PREFACE. 

authors have been culled from his pages? what skill 
has been exhibited in the modern adaptation of his 
thoughts or language? Collaterally, it is conceived 
that numerous matters extracted from Martial's writings 
will be found in this work, that are interesting inde- 
pendently of their conversion to any modern use. 

The causes why Martial's works are seldom read 
in the present day, are various. A large part of his 
epigrams have reference to odious vices which, in his 
time, were undisguisedly dilated upon in poetry, and 
which render his book unfit to be placed in the hands of 
youth. In some editions of Martial, indeed, epigrams 
of this nature are entirely omitted : the Delphin editors 
have transposed about a hundred and fifty of them to 
a separate sheep-fold, but they have been very far from 
making a clearance of this Augean stable. Such epi- 
grams, however, it may be observed, are not without 
a use, as furnishing remarkable proofs of the prevalence 
of those abominations, which, as appears from the 
Scriptures, were objects of aversion and reprobation 
among the early Christians. Moreover, it may be 
observed, that, out of the very epigrams defiled by 
gross images, several of our eminent writers have 
derived reflections in aid of morality and religion, as 
it were, refined gold out of heaps of impure dross*. 
Nor can we forget that several of our own authors of 
repute, as, for instance, Shakspere, Swift, Prior, Field- 
ing, and others of great name, have left many a line 
which every friend to decency would wish to blot. 



PREFACE. V 

Further, as Martial flourished nearly a hundred 
years after the Augustan period, he does not afford 
so choice a model of the purity of the Roman language 
as some earlier classical writers. For this reason we 
are told that Navagero, a great Italian scholar in the 
pontificate of Leo X., used, annually, to burn a volume 
of Martial's works, by way of incense to the Manes 
of the Augustan poets. It may appear to many, 
that, of late years, in this country, education has been 
directed rather to the philology and diction of the 
Roman authors, than to their information and reflec- 
tions; to exercises which, indeed, invigorate the mind, 
but of which the scope is rather that of the husks than 
of the fruits of knowledge. Besides, at our Universities, 
students are regarded as examinable beings; and clas- 
sical examinations are a species of andrometer better 
adapted to the niceties of language, than to degrees 
of proficiency in modern uses of ancient literature. 

It will be allowed, moreover, that, in the period of 
youth, compositions which exalt the sentiments and 
inspire the imagination are the most congenial and 
digestible food of the mind ; whereas that which is the 
principal subject of Martial's writings, viz. human 
nature portrayed under the multiform circumstances of 
civilized life, is more peculiarly suited to the require- 
ments of persons of ripe years, and conversant with the 
mores hominum multorum. 

To those who might be desirous of reading Martial, 
as an author treating of human character, and the 



VI PREFACE. 

manners of ancient life, much difficulty often occurs 
in the interpretation of obscure and controverted pas- 
sages ; and the sense of an epigram is very frequently 
unintelligible, owing to its having some pointed allusion 
to particular persons or circumstances the memory 
whereof is altogether lost by lapse of time. Poets 
who seek lasting marble must choose lasting topics: 
it is not enough that they comply with Waller's con- 
dition of " carving in Latin or in Greek." 

Martial has received some prejudice from its being 
supposed, in modern times, that every epigram had 
its sting, and was always an attempt, more or less 
successful, at some flash of wit; whereas, the term 
anciently signified an inscription, of which the recom- 
mendations are that it should be brief, and simple, 
but not necessarily facetious. It is true that Martial 
labours to give to the last line or two of his epigrams 
a sharper edge than was the practice of Catullus, who 
followed more closely the patterns of the Greeks ; yet he 
expressly repudiates the notion that epigrams are merely 
subservient to wit. Martial's works, however, may, 
sometimes, excite admiration for this quality; but, 
more frequently, for their humour, irony, ridicule, good 
sense, and sagacity. 

With regard to the execution of this work; — a 
selection has been made, out of between fifteen and 
sixteen hundred epigrams, subject to two conditions; 
first, that every epigram selected should have been 
applied to some modern use; secondly, that each epi- 



PREFACE. Vll 

gram and the instance of its modern use, or, at least, 
one or the other, should contain matter of interest to 
the general reader. The only part of this plan which 
may be thought to operate unfairly to Martial's re- 
putation, is, that some epigrams are excluded which 
have more merit than some which are inserted, and 
this, simply for the reason that no modern use happens 
to have been made of them. But, on the other hand, 
it is not Martial, but the modern use of Martial, 
which is the paramount subject of this book. More- 
over, the test, however imperfect, of a modern use, 
is so far practically an indication of merit, as that 
all, or nearly all, the best epigrams of Martial will 
be, probably, allowed to have found a place, agree- 
ably to that test, in the present jcollection, and that 
there are few epigrams omitted in which there is much 
talent, and little grossness. 

It has been thought convenient for the development 
of the subject of the book to arrange it under heads of 
chapters that correspond with the original purport of 
the epigrams; exhibiting, at the foot of each epigram, 
the modern use or uses to which it has been applied. 
No small collateral benefit, it is conceived, will result 
from the present plan, viz. that whereas Martial's 
multitudinous epigrams are usually huddled toge- 
ther, those that have been here selected will be found 
to contribute mutual aid, from their arrangement, 
towards the illustration of interesting subjects, and 
of each other. 



Vlll PREFACE. 

The principal difficulty experienced in the prepa- 
ration of this work has been that of distinguishing 
between modern uses, and parallel passages, or un- 
designed coincidences of sentiment or description. The 
instances cited will "be generally found to carry 
Martial's ear-marks; but, on some occasions, it has been 
impossible to carry the inquiry beyond conjecture or 
possibility. In conjectural cases differences of opinion 
may be anticipated on the question, whether a particular 
quotation adduced is an example of a modern use, or is a 
parallel passage? as to which point, it is trusted, that 
due allowance will be made for diversity of literary 
information or taste, and that it will be borne in mind 
how much, in such an inquiry, depends on the fami- 
liarity of an author quoted with Martial's works, and 
on his practice of rifling their treasures*. 

The epigrams of Martial selected for this work are 
all translated into English Prose; but there is a re- 
ference, at the conclusion of each, to the Latin original, 
according to the Delphin edition. It should be here 
mentioned, that the Author disclaims any merit for 
elucidating to the learned reader the text of Martial; 

* The niceties of literary filiation may be exemplified by Pope's well-known 
inscription on the collar of the Prince of Wales's dog, viz. 

I am his Highness's dog at Kew, 
Pray tell me, Sir! whose dog are you? 

It is not generally known that in Sir William Temple's Heads designed for an Essay 
on Conversation, we find, " Mr Grantham's fooVs reply to a great man that asked 
him whose fool he was? I am Mr Grantham's fool: pray, whose fool are you?" — 
Did Pope borrow from the fool ? 



PREFACE. IX 

the philologist will not, it is expected, find in this 
work any discovery to repay him for the task of read- 
ing it, and might sometimes meet with solecisms that 
would provoke his choler. It is, however, satisfactory, 
that the modern uses subjoined, especially the trans- 
lations in prose and verse by eminent writers, afford, 
in many instances, a touchstone, by means of which 
any errors of the author can be detected and rectified. 
Considering that the work is addressed to students of 
English literature, and persons conversant with human 
nature, or desirous of becoming so, rather than to pro- 
found Latin scholars, it is conceived that most of its 
readers will be thankful for translations; it is not 
denied that the modern uses of Martial may some- 
times be more apparent from the original epigrams 
than from any translation, to such as can swim without 
corks. 

It is almost unnecessary to explain why Martial's 
epigrams have been translated, in this collection, into 
prose, rather than verse. It may be observed, that 
poetical versions of most of the epigrams best suited 
to poetry are adduced, at the foot of them, in the 
character of modern uses; such versions, when made 
by eminent authors, as Cowley, Ben Jonson, Addison, 
and Pope, being part of the standard literature of the 
country. Moreover, the generality of Martial's epi- 
grams have not been penned in any very elevated 
region of Parnassus: he is almost silent upon the 
inspiring theme of most of the short poems of our 



X PREFACE. 

own literature, viz. love : his epigrams relate chiefly to 
transactions of private life which are not of a romantic 
or impassioned character, and to things as they are. 

The Author's task has not been conducted in so 
strait-laced a manner, as to exclude, in a few instances, 
explanations and illustrations of the original epigrams, 
additively to examples of modern uses. It is hoped 
that such a course will be found to facilitate and enliven 
the progress of the reader, without impertinently divert- 
ing his attention from the main objects of the work. 

St Ibbs, Hitchin, Herts. 
March, 1858. 



CONTENTS. 



KPIGKAM 

I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 
VII. 
VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 



XII. 
XIII. 
XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 

XVII. 

XVHI. 

XIX. 

XX. 
XXI. 
XXII. 

xxm. 

XXIV. 

XXV. 
XXVI. 
XXVII. 
XXVIII 

XXIX. 

XXX. 

XXXT. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGH 

PUBLIC SHOWS i 

The Hare and the Lion 3 

Litter of Wild Pigs 5 

The Lion that worried his Keeper 6 

Victor and Vanquished 7 

Laureolus 9 

Orpheus io 

Hero and Leander n 

Mucius Scaevola 12 

Scorpus, the Charioteer .14 

Epitaph on Scorpus 15 

Paris, the Actor 16 

CHAPTER II. 

LITEPvATUKE 18 

Friendship in Literary Fame ....... ib. 

Solid Books 21 

Uniform Brilliancy . . . . . . . . -23 

Relevancy .......... 24 

Prolixity ........... 26 

Eoughness and Obscurity . . ib. 

Poetic Licence 28 

Difficult Trifles ig 

Fit Themes . . 31 

Vices, not Persons 32 

Extemporary Poems 34 

Books, partly good 35 

Critics compared to Cooks 36 

Vatican Wine for Critics 37 

Misspent Criticism 38 

Rhinoceros' Noses 39 

Reciprocating Critics 41 

Deceased Poets . 42 

Posthumous Works 43 

Images in Verse and in Painting 44 



Xll CONTENTS. 

EPIGRAM PAGB 

XXXII. A Reciter of bought Verses 45 

XXXIII. Author made by Recitation 46 

XXXIV. Importunate Reciter 47 

XXXV. Poet and Muse 49 

XXXVI. A welcomed Author 51 

XXXVII. Readers 52 

XXXVIII. Remuneration of Authors . . . . . . -S3 

XXXIX. Author in want of a Cloak 56 

XL. Advantages of a Patron 57 

XLI. A willing Patron 58 

XL1I. An Attic Patron . . . . . . . . . 59 

XLIII. Plagiaries 60 

XLIV. Booksellers .62 

XLV. Author's Portrait 63 

XL VI. Square MSS . .64 

XL VII. Explicit. Cornua 65 

XL VIII. Book- Sponge 66 

XLIX. Writing-tablets 67 

L. Short-hand 68 

LI. Martial ib. 

LII. Quintilian . . . 69 

LILT. Juvenal 71 

LIV. Catullus's Sparrow 72 

LV. Virgil's Tomb 74 

LVI. Silius Italicus 75 

LVII. Pliny . 76 



CHAPTER III. 

GENERAL LIFE 79 

LVIII. A Happy Life. . 80 

LIX. Road to Happiness 84 

LX. Living twice 87 

LXL Prolonging Life . . . . . . . . .89 

LXII. Healthy Life 90 

LXIII. Verge of Life 91 

LXIV. Prosperous Iniquity 92 

LXV. Choice of a Profession -93 

LXVI. Procrastination 95 

LXVIL Dying, for fear of Death 96 

LXVIIL Suicide 98 

LXIX. Dying for another 99 

LXX. Boy killed by an Icicle 100 

LXXI. Death by Dream of a Physician ior 

LXXII. Connubial Felicity ib. 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

EPIGRAM PAGE 

LXXIII. A Rich Wife 103 

LXXIV. Mutual Friendship . ib. 

LXXV. Intimate Friends 105 

LXXVI. New Friends . 106 

LXXVIL Gifts to Friends 107 

LXXVIII. Proclaiming Obligations 109 

LXXIX. Entertaining Companion . , no 

LXXX. A Model Character in 

LXXXI. Changes of Character . 112 

LXXXTI. Favourite of Providence 113 

LXXXIII. Physiognomy . . . . . * . . . .115 

LXXXIV. Loved, when unseen . 116 

LXXXV. Not to be lived with, nor lived without 117 

LXXXVI. Antipathy , .118 

LXXXVII. Pleased by none 119 

LXXX VIII. Nursery Governor 120 

LXXXIX. Unseasonable Advice 121 

XC. Indiscriminate Praise . . . . • . . . . 122 

XCI. Affectation of Real Poverty . . . . - . . . ib. 

XCII. Sufficient Fortune .123 

XCIII. Buy all, sell all , . .124 

XCIV. Complicated Vices . . 125 

XCV. Feigned Tears ib. 

XCVI. Simulated Complaints . . 126 

XCVII. Disinherited, by inheriting 127 

XCVIII. Physician turned Undertaker 128 

XCIX. A pilfering Physician . . . . . . . . 129 

C. Paving on Naevia ib. 

CI. Unbecoming Smiles 131 

CII. Building and Bestowing . . . ... . .132 

CIII. Plurality of Residences . .133 

CIV. A House for Show 134 

CV. A neighbourless Neighbour ib. 

CVI. Epitaph on Glaucias 136 

CVII. Elegy on Erotion 138 

CVIIL Elegy on Alcimus 140 

CHAPTER IV. 





ROMAN LIFE 


. 141 


CIX. 


Conflux of Nations 


. 143 


ex. 


Cries of Rome 


. 145 


CXI. 


Horary Occupations 


. 148 


CXII. 


Country Life 


. 150 


CXIII. 


A Rustic Villa 


• 153 



XIV CONTENTS. 

BPIGRAM PAGa 

CXIV. Rex, and Salutations . . . . . . .158 

CXV. How to live without a Rex . . , . . . .160 

CXVI. Seats at the Theatre 16 r 

CXVII. Slaves 163 

CXVIII. Manumission 165 

CXIX. A Slave-fool ^6 

CXX. Saturnalia 167 

CXXI. Dinner Charts . . . . . , . . .169 

CXXII. Supper of Perfume 173 

CXXIII. Walking Suppers 174 

CXXIV. Mixing Wines . . 175 

CXXV. Drinking Names 176 

CXXVI. Suppers nigh Tombs 179 

CXXVII. Supper-hunting at Porticos and Baths 180 

CXXVIII. Supper-hunting by News-telling 181 

CXXIX. Supper-hunting by crying Sophos ...... 183 

CXXX. Legacy-hunting 184 

CXXXI. Social Games 186 

CXXXII. Multiplied Marriages ib. 

CXXXIII. Widowed Step-mothers 187 

CXXXIV. Begging Incendiary 189 

CXXXV. Dandies 190 

CXXXVI. The Kissing Nuisance . 192 

CXXXVII. Roman Barbers 193 

CXXXVIII. False Hair i 95 

CXXXIX. Hair-cutting . . . i 9 6 

CXL. Dyeing Hair t "6. 

CHAPTER V. 

ROMAN HISTORY 198 

CXLI. Arria j^p 

CXLII. Mucius Scaevola . .201 

CXLIII. Portia 202 

CXLTV. Cicero 204 

CXLV. Antony - 205 

CXL VI. Pompey 206 

CXLVII. Otho, Cato 207 

CXLVIII. Domitian's return from the Sarmatian War .... 208 

CXLIX. Domitian loved . . . 209 

CL. Domitian a Maecenas 211 

CLI. Nerva's Accession 212 

CLII. Trajan's restitution 2is 

CLIII. Trajan's entry into Rome 216 



CONTENTS. 



XV 



CHAPTER VI. 

PAGB 

digram MYTHOLOGY 218 

CLIV. Jupiter . 219 

CLV. Minerva . 220 

CLVI. Apollo . . 22 i 

CLVII. Bacchus 222 

CLVIII. Mercury 223 

CLIX. Hercules 225 

CLX. Janus ........... 228 

CLXI. Rome 230 

CLXII. The Rhine 231 

CLXIIL Bsetis (the Gualdalquiver) , ft,, 

CLXIV. Priapus 233 

CLXV. Sacrifices 234 

CLXVI. Bankruptcy in Olympus 235 

CHAPTER VII. 

TOPOGRAPHY 236 

CLXVIL Vesuvius 237 

CLXVin. Baiae 239 

CLXLX. Baiae and Tibur 241 

CLXX. Tibur (Tivoli) .242 

CLXXI. Anxur (Terracina) 243 

CLXXII. Narni (Narnia) . ,246 

CLXXIII. Ravenna 247 

CLXXTV. Formiae (Mola) 248 

CLXXV. Janiculum 2 e.o 

CLXXVI. Colisaeum .252 

CLXXVII. Palatium s 54 

CLXXVIII. Nero's Palace 255 

CLXXIX. Streets of Rome 357 

CHAPTER VIII. 

MOVEABLES 259 

CLXXX. Apophoreta a fa 

CLXXXI. Bazaar 2 g 3 

CLXXXII. Antiques ^55 

CLXXXIII. ReHc a6; 

CLXXXIV. Table Hercules * 2 6 8 

CLXXXV. Mental Portrait ^g 

CLXXXVI. Picture of a Lap-dog a * 



XVI CONTENTS. 

EPIGRAM PAGB 

CLXXXVII. Swan 271 

CLXXXVIII. Magpie 272 

CLXXXIX. A Bird-cage 273 

CXC. Tumbler ib. 

CXCI. Eabbit 274 

CXCII. Insects in Amber 275 

CXCIII. Flowers and Fruits 276 

CXCIV. Onion 278 

CXCV. Porcelain 279 

CXC VI. Chasings of Metals 280 

CXCVII. Basket 281 

CXCVIII. Belt .282 

CXCIX. Napkin ib. 

CC. Table Utensils and Attire 284 

CCI. Abolla .285 

Appendix. Miscellaneous Examples of the modern use of Martial . 287 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



CHAPTER I. 
PUBLIC SHOWS. 

Martial composed a book consisting of thirty-one epi- 
grams on the subject of the Public Shows exhibited in those 
stupendous edifices that are said to have unpeopled Rome 
on the days of its festivals. These exhibitions took place 
in the amphitheatre, the theatre, and the circus. The reader 
will not fail to notice the frivolity of many of the amusements 
which diverted, and sometimes inflamed, the Roman people ; 
and his humane feelings must be shocked, as well at the 
recital of death-combats between professional gladiators, as 
of the capital punishments of malefactors exposed to wild 
beasts, and otherwise tortured to death amid scenical deco- 
rations purposely adapted to the tragical spectacle. The 
cruelty to animals in the amphitheatre, though eclipsed by 
more savage atrocities, would not in the present day, in this 
country, escape the animadversion of a laudable Society in- 
stituted for their protection. Reflections will occur on the 
barbarity, in point of morals, of a nation, among whom a 
favourite poet could court renown by the celebration of 
scenes replete with horror and inhumanity. 

An additional interest is imparted to the Roman public 
shows from the circumstance of the early Christians having 
been often exposed to beasts, as happened, according to 
our version, to the Apostle Paul, at Ephesus. On account 
of the cruelty of such spectacles, and of the idolatry 

MART. B 



2 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

interwoven with them, the public sports of the Romans are 
frequently censured by the early Fathers of the Church. 
Indeed, the Fathers may be thought to have been some- 
times transported by intemperate zeal against such abomi- 
nations. Thus Tertullian, in a book written on the subject 
of public shows, anticipates, with glowing satisfaction, at the 
Day of Judgment, such a public show as neither a Consul, 
nor a Praetor, nor a Quaestor, out of their purses (de sua libe- 
ralite) can afford. "At this show," he writes, "the charioteer 
of the circus will look red with the flames of his own wheels 
(auriga in flammed rota totus rubens); and other conflagra- 
tions, forming part of the same gratifying spectacle, will 
surpass, in the delight they afford, any thing that has been 
witnessed in the amphitheatre, theatre, circus, or any sta- 
dium in the world/' (Credo circo, et utrdque caved et omni 
stadio gratiora.) 

With regard to the modern uses of the epigrams con- 
tained in the present chapter, they have been chiefly directed 
to purposes totally alien from Martial's object. This is, per- 
haps, more the case in the present than in any other chapter ; 
owing, probably, to the circumstance, that, in England, we 
have differed more from ancient Rome in regard to our public 
shows, than in most other features of our morals and manners, 
notwithstanding that English literature comprises some lively 
descriptions of bear-baits and cock-fights. 






I.] PUBLIC SHOWS. 3 

EPIGRAM I. 

THE HARE AND THE LION. 

I. 

hare ! although you enter the vast mouth of the grim 
lion, he seems unaware that there is anything in it to feed 
on with his teeth. Where is the back on which he can 
spring? Where the shoulders on which he can cast him- 
self? Where can he imprint a deep wound as on a fat 
bullock? Why do you futilely fatigue the king of the 
woods? He does not feed except upon prey of his own 
choice. — Lib. i. Ep. lxi. 

ii. 

Why, hare! do you fly from the terrible mouth of 
the placid lion? That mouth has not learnt how to crush 
small animals. Those talons are kept for large necks: nor 
is the immense thirst of a lion to be quenched with a 
slender stream of blood. A hare is the appropriate prey 
of dogs, it does not fill a lion's gaping jaws. In like 
manner, the Dacian child is not terrified at the arms of 
Csesar— Lib. i. Ep. xxm. 

The above two epigrams are selected out of a considerable number 
which Martial composed upon a subject that appears to have excited 
absorbing interest at Home, — a Hare which, in the Amphitheatre, 
used to be pursued and caught by a Lion, who set it free again from 
its jaws without injury. Statius has also commemorated this once 
attractive spectacle. 

A contribution from each of the above epigrams (as marked in 
Italics), composes the distich which was inscribed under the famous 
Lion's mouth of the Guardian : 

Servantur magnis isti cervicibus ungues, 
Non nisi delecta pascitur ille fera. 

B2 



4 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

In the 98th number of the Guardian an intention is announced 
of erecting a Lion's Head, in imitation of the famous one at Venice, 
with a voracious mouth for receiving communications, at Button's 
Coffee-house in Covent Garden. In the 114th number it is stated 
that the Lion's Head was then erected, and a humourous description 
is given of the Lion's character and functions. In the Preface to 
the Englishman, which was a sequel to the Guardian, it is an- 
nounced that the editor had purchased the Guardian's Lion; the 
Lion's Head is still in existence. It is remarkable that, in the first 
number of the Guardian, correspondents are directed to address 
their communications ' post-paid, to Nestor Ironside, Esq., at Mr 
Jonson's, in the Strand.' There are 175 numbers of the Guardian, 
in which Addison did not take a part until No. 67, and only 
once after that, until No. 97, when he wrote without interruption 
for twenty-seven numbers; this being the period of Steele's embar- 
rassments. It will be observed that the Lion's Head was set up at 
the time of Addison taking the temporary management of the 
Guardian. Button, at whose coffee-house the Lion's Head was set 
up, was patronized by Addison ; he liad been a servant of Addison's 
wife's family; his Christian-name of Daniel is played upon, in the 
Guardian, in connexion with his Lion. 

Ben Jonson appears to have adverted to Martial's epigrams on 
the Lion and Hare in an epigram in which he attacks the celebrated 
architect, Inigo Jones: 

Sir Inigo doth fear it, as I hear, 

And labors to seem worthy of that fear, 

That I should write upon him some sharp verse, 

Able to eat into his bones, and pierce 

Their marrow. Wretch! I quit thee of thy pain, 

Thou'rt too ambitious, and dost fear in vain: 

The Lybian lion hunts no butterflies, 

He makes the camel and dull ass his prize. 

* * * -X- * 

Thy forehead is too narrow for my brand. 

In the lines of Ben Jonson just quoted, the epithet ambitious is, 
probably, borrowed from the same epithet applied to the hare in 
another epigram of Martial, in which it is addressed, 'ambitious 
hare!' {ambitiose lepus). The last of Jonson's lines seems to be 



I.] PUBLIC SHOWS. 5 

ingeniously concocted in part of the epigrams on the Hare and Lion, 
and partly of an epigram of Martial upon a poet of the name of 
Ligurra. Jonson's last line is preceded by the following : — 

Seek out some hungry painter, that for bread 
With rotten coal or chalk upon the wall 
Will well design thee to be viewed of all; 
Thy forehead is too narrow for my brand. 

Ligurra is said by Martial to write verses on walls carbone rvdi 
putrique creta, or, as Boileau has applied it to a contemporary poet, 
charbonner de ses vers les murs, and Martial parts with Ligurra in 
the terms, Frons hcec stigmate non meo notanda est. 



II. 
LITTER OF WILD PIGS. 

The savage sow gave birth to the litter of which it was 
pregnant, on being made a parent by the fatal wound it 
sustained. The young offspring did not tarry with their 
stricken mother, but ran off. Wonderful is the subtlety 
which may be developed by accident! — Sped. Lib. xiv. 

The phenomenon of the stricken sow and her litter in the Am- 
phitheatre is the subject of three epigrams of Martial. In one of 
them he adverts to the double function of Diana, killing beasts and 
presiding over child-birth. In another, the poet discovers an ana- 
logy to the birth of Bacchus, who was saved from his mother Semele's 
womb when she was burnt, and completed the period of gestation in 
Jupiter's thigh. 

The concluding reflection of the epigram concerning Accident is, 
perhaps, not particularly appropriate or edifying; but it is remark- 
able for its modern use, as having been employed by Lord Bacon. 
King James was under great alarm lest the Earl of Somerset, at his 
trial for poisoning Sir Thomas Overbury, should make revelations. 



6 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

He accordingly enjoined Bacon, then Attorney-General, to suggest 
in writing all the contingencies which he conjectured might occur at 
the trial, together with his opinion as to the best way of encoun- 
tering them. Lord Bacon prefaces his letter containing the result 
of his anticipations and suggestions with a salvo, that accidents might 
happen beyond the reach of human foresight : upon which point he 
observes, " I cannot forget what the poet Martial saith, ' quantum 
est subitis casibus ingenium P signifying that accident is many times 
more subtle than foresight, and overreacheth expectation." 



III. 
THE LION THAT WORRIED HIS KEEPER. 

The lion injured his keeper with an ungrateful mouth, 
and dared to tear the hands with which he had been fa- 
miliar. But he suffered a punishment worthy of his crime; 
he would not endure blows, he endured darts. What morals 
become the people of that Prince who imposes a milder 
disposition on brutes! — Speet.x. 

The inhumanity and adulation of the above epigram would not 
have been obtruded on the reader, but for the curious use made of it 
by Jeremy Taylor. In a Discourse on Ecclesiastical Penance, he 
observes that self-affliction is the fruit of repentance, and that they 
who refuse to endure it, may probably endure something worse, 
quoting from Martial (as in Italics), 

Et qui non tulerit verbera, tela tulit. 



I.] PUBLIC SHOWS. 7 

IV. 

VICTOR AND VANQUISHED. 

When Priscus and Verus each prolonged the combat, 
and Mars for a long time hesitated to declare a victory, 
the people made repeated supplications to the Emperor 
that the combatants might be dismissed; but Csesar obeyed 
a law of his own. The law was, that the gladiators should 
fight on for the palm till one of them raised his finger 
(in token of being vanquished); but they were permitted 
to take refreshment, and receive gifts. Yet an end was 
discovered of this balanced conflict; equals they fought, 
equals they gave up the fight. Csesar sent to each a rod 
of honourable retirement from the arena; to each he sent 
palms. Valor and skill bore off this reward. Thus it hap- 
pened, what never happened except in your reign, Csesar, 
that where two fought each was conqueror! {Victor uter- 
que fuit.)—Spect. xxix. 

Fuller, in his Worthies of Wiltshire, apparently applies the above 
epigram to illustrate his description of Landsdown Fight between 
the forces of Charles I. and those of the Parliament. 

" This battle was fought on the confines of this county (Wilt- 
shire) and Somersetshire, on the 13th of July, 1643. It was dis- 
puted by parcels and piecemeals, as the place and narrow passages 
would give leave; and it seemed not so much one entire battle, as 
a heap of skirmishes huddled together. It may be said, in some 
sort, of both sides, 

Victus uterque fuit, victor uterque fuit." 

(Each was conquered, each was conqueror.) 

A curious application of the above epigram was made by Dr 
Alabaster, in relation to two brothers of the name of Raynolds. 
William Paynolds was a Protestant residing in England, and his 
brother was trained up in Popery beyond seas. William took a 
voyage in the hopes of converting his brother to the Church of 



8 . MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

England ; a long conference between them ensued, wherein the bro- 
thers were so much convinced by the force of each other's arguments, 
that John returned to England a staunch Protestant, whilst William 
abided abroad, where he proved a virulent Papist. 

Bella inter geminos plusquam civilia fratres, 

Traxerat ambiguus religionis apex. 
Ille Reformats fidei pro partibus instat, 

Iste Reformandam denegat esse fidem. 
Propositis causae rationibus, alter utrinque, 

Coneurrere pares, et cecidere pares. 
Quod fuit in votis, fratrem capit alter uterque; 

Quod fuit in fatis, perdit uterque fidem. 
Captivi gemini sine captivante fuerunt, 

Et victor victi transfuga castra petit. 
Quid genus hoc pugnse est, ubi victus gaudet uterque; 

Et tamen alteruter se superasse dolet? — 

Which has been translated by Dr Peter 'Heylin : — 

In points of faith some undetermin'd jars 
Betwixt two brothers kindled civil wars. 
One for the church's reformation stood, 
The other thought no reformation good. 
The points propos'd, they traversed the field 
With equal skill, and both together yield. 
As they desired, each brother each subdues; 
Yet such their fate that each his faith did lose. 
Both captives, none the prisoners thence do guide; 
The victor flying to the vanquish' d side. 
Both join'd in being conquer'd (strange to say), 
And yet both mourn' d because both won the day. 

Jeremy Taylor has given a relation of this memorable disputation 
between the two Baynolds brothers ; he writes that " they disputed 
with a purpose to confute and convert each other, and so they did; 
for those arguments that they used prevailed fully against each 
adversary, and yet did not prevail with themselves. The Papist 
turned Protestant, and the Protestant became a Papist, and so 
remained till their dying days — of which some ingenious person 
gave a most handsome account in an excellent epigram, which for 



I.] PUBLIC SHOWS. 9 

the versification of the story, I have set down in the margent." 
Taylor does not give the name of Dr Alabaster nor the English 
version, which will be found in the second volume of the Retrospective 
Review. 

Tertullian, in his treatise De Sj)ectaculis, remarks on the incon- 
sistency of the Roman People in exposing criminals to wild beasts, 
but rewarding a gladiator, whose daily vocation had been that of 
homicide, with a rudis (rod of honourable retirement). 



V. 

LAUREOLUS. 



Like as Prometheus was chained to a, rock, whilst a 
vulture with unassuaged voracity was devouring his vitals, 
so Laureolus, in the amphitheatre, was stretched on a real 
cross, presenting his heart to be torn by a Caledonian bear. 
He had probably been a parricide, or had killed a master, 
or had despoiled a temple of its secret gold, or had raised 
the torch of an incendiary to fire Rome. His guilt must 
have surpassed in enormity anything recorded in the annals 
of crime; since what was designed for a drama was con- 
verted into a most dreadful punishment. — Spect. vn. 

Laureolus was a robber whose adventures were dramatised ; they 
ended in the hero of the piece being crucified. The epigram illus- 
trates a passage of Juvenal, in which that poet represents a patrician 
youth acting the part of Laureolus, and observes that he would have 
been deservedly nailed to a real cross : the hint was not lost on 
the caterers of Roman entertainments. 

Barrington, in his Observations on the Ancient Statutes, whose 
agreeable and instructive work abounds with pleasant, though not 
always pertinent illustrations, makes use of the concluding lines of 
the above epigram, in adducing them to show that although, by the 
Lex Portia, all capital sentences might have been remitted for that 



10 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

of banishment, yet that capital punishments were inflicted for some 
crimes in the time of Martial. Barrington is commenting on the 
circumstance that the crime of murder received the indulgence of 
clergy for many centuries prior to the reign of Henry VIII. It 
may be observed that the Lex Porcia applied only to Roman 
citizens ; and it does not appear that Martial's Laureolus was either 
born free, or obtained his freedom at a great price. Gibbon, more- 
over, notices that " the freedom of the City evaporated in the extent 
of Empire, and the Spanish malefactor who claimed the privileges 
of a Roman was elevated, by the command of Galba, on a fairer and 
more lofty cross." 

The learned editor of the Cambridge Tertullian refers to this 
epigram of Martial as confirmatory of general representations in his 
author of the cruel exhibitions of the Roman amphitheatre. 



VI. 

ORPHEUS. 



What Rhodope is said to have witnessed in Orpheus' 
natural theatre, your arena, Csesar, exhibited to you. The 
rocks creeped, and the wondering wood ran, a wood re- 
sembling the grove of the Hesperides. There was present 
a promiscuous assemblage of all species of wild beasts, and 
many kinds of birds hovered over the poet. But he lay 
torn to pieces by a bear ungrateful for his music. Thus, 
what before was, probably, a fiction, we saw realised. — SpecL 

XXI. 

Eustace, in his Classical Tour, observes "I might amaze the 
reader with an account of the wonders frequently exhibited in 
the Roman Amphitheatre. Titus himself who erected it, was not 
content with the usual exhibition of wild beasts, but produced the 
scenery of the countries whence they were imported, and astonished 
the Romans with an immense display of rocks and forests." Eustace 



I.] PUBLIC SHOWS. 11 

then quotes the first four verses of the above epigram, with the 

following version : 

The wonders Orpheus wrought on Thracian ground, 
Great Caesar, in thy theatre are found; 
To music's sound tall rocks and mountains move, 
And trees start up and match th' Hesperian grove. 
The bestial tribes through distant woods that roam, 
Here meet in crowds, and wond'ring find a home. 



VII. 

HEKO AND LEANDER. 

Leander ! do not wonder at the waves of last night in 
the Naumachia sparing yon : the waves were Caesar's. When 
the bold Leander was in qnest of the sweet object of his 
love, and felt oppressed by the swelling snrges, he is said 
to have thus addressed the waters that threatened to over- 
whelm him: "Spare me whilst I hasten, drown me when I 
return." — Spect. xxv. 

Martial relates a variety of spectacles exhibited upon water in- 
troduced into the amphitheatre, including sea-fights, in which there 
was often a great destruction of human life. On the subject of the 
speech put into Leander's mouth by Martial, after the Greek, Vol- 
taire, in his Questions sur IS Encyclopedic, Art. Epigramme, among 
translations into French of epigrams by an unknown author, exe- 
cuted, in his opinioD, with a brevity of which the French language 
had often been thought incapable, cites a French version : — 

Leandre conduit par l'amour, 
En nageant, disoit aux orages, 
Laissez moi gagner les rivages, 
Ne me noyez qu' a mon retour. 

Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, quotes Leander's speech 
from Martial a a strong symptom of love-melancholy. It is, also, 



12 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

quoted by Rabelais, whose translator, Mr Ozell, in his edition of 
1737, thus renders it: 

Now, whilst I go, have pity on me, 
And at my back-returning drown me. 

Gibbon observes that the improbable tale of Hero and Leander 
is exposed by M. Mahudel, but is defended on the authority of poets 
and medals by M. De-la-Nauze. See the Academie des Inscriptions, 
Tom. vu. In Martial's distichs to accompany Saturnalian presents 
{Lib. xiv. Ep. 181), there is one containing the speech to the waves; 
it was intended to accompany the present of a marble Leander. 



VIII. 

MUCIUS SC^YOLA. 



If you deem that Mucius, who recently thrust his hand 
into the fire at a morning exhibition of the arena, to be 
a paragon of endurance and fortitude, you have no more 
sense than the inhabitants of Abdera. For when a man is 
commanded to burn his hand, and the tormenting pitchy 
tunic is presented to him as the alternative, it is a greater 
exploit than burning his hand, to say, " I will not burn it" 
(and so will have my whole body burnt instead of my hand). 

Or (according to another interpretation) — 

It is a greater exploit than that of the mimic ScBevola, 
who burnt his hand in the amphitheatre, when the alterna- 
tive is offered of the pitchy shirt, or taking frankincense in 
the hand (an alternative offered to Christians), to say, "I 
do not sacrifice" (I reject the frankincense, and prefer being 
burnt in the pitchy shirt).— Lib. x. Ep. xxv. 

Paley, in his Evidences of Christianity, observes, " Martial wrote a 
few years before the younger Pliny, and, as his manner was, made 
the sufferings of the Christians the subject of his ridicule. Nothing, 



I.] PUBLIC SHOWS. 13 

however, could show the notoriety of the fact with more certainty 
than this epigram of Martial does. Martial's testimony, as well 
indeed as Pliny's, goes also to another point, viz. that the deaths of 
these men were martyrdoms in the strictest sense: that is to say, 
were so voluntary, that it was in their power, at the time of pro- 
nouncing the sentence, to have averted the execution of it by con- 
senting to join in heathen sacrifices." 

Paley does not seem justified in his observation that Martial 
"made the sufferings of the Christians the subject of his ridicule." 
The testimony concerning those sufferings attributed by Paley to 
Martial is founded on the two last lines of the epigram : — 

Nam cum dicatur tunica pnesente molesta 
Tire manum, plus est dicere, Nonfacio. 

As a note upon the words ure manum (burn your hand), PalejT 
writes " forsan Thure manum," (Fill your hand with frankincense, 
the word fill being understood). 

Dr Malkin, in his Classical Disquisitions, observes that the point 
of the above epigram of Martial is not obvious ; he writes concerning 
it, " It is to be understood that Martial was no friend to violence, and, 
least of all, to self-violence. He was not ambitious to think with the 
sages of Abdera, a city of Thrace, whose very air was thought to teem 
with stupidity or madness. He, therefore, pronounces it less bold 
spontaneously to burn a limb, than to refuse to do so, in a case where 
the torturing tunic, lined with various combustibles, must be expected 
as the immediate consequence. The last word of the epigram, which 
in the elliptic idiom of the Latin language is sometimes used in the 
sense of sacrificing, has given rise to the conjecture that Martial 
alludes to some Christian criminal, admired even by enemies, and 
placed on a higher pinnacle of self-devotion than Mucius, for refusing 
facere, to offer incense to the heathen Deities. At all events the 
drift is philosophical, in raising passive above active courage." 
It may be doubted whether Martial meant more than that the 
people, in their admiration for the mock Mucius, overlooked the 
circumstance, that, if he had not consented to burn his hand, he 
would, probably, have had his whole body burnt in a pitchy tunic. 

In the 177th Number of the Tatler, the writer, in treating of 
the false glory of Dedications, observes, "The Koman, who was 
surprized in the enemy's camp before he had accomplished his 



14 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

design, and thrust his bare arm into a flaming pile, telling the king 
that there were many as determined as himself, who, against sense of 
danger, had conspired his death, wrought in the very enemy an 
admiration of his fortitude, and a dismission with applause. But 
the condemned slave who represented him in the theatre, and 
consumed his arm in the same manner, with the same resolution, 
did not raise in the spectators a great idea of his virtue, but of 
him whom he imitated in an action no way differing from that 
}f the real Scaevola, but in the motive." It may be thought that 
it appears from some epigrams of Martial that the Tatler may 
aave paid too high a compliment to the discrimination of a 
Ionian audience. In another epigram on the dramatic Mucius we 
fnd, 

Scire piget post tale decus quid fecerit ante, 
Quam vidi, satis est hanc mihi nosse manum. 

" After such an exploit, I cannot bring myself to know his former 
life : it is enough for me to have known that hand of his." 



IX. 

SCORPTJS, THE CHAKIOTEER. 

Let mournful Victory break to pieces her Idumean palms, 
Favor! beat your naked breasts with unsparing hands; 
let Honor change her garb; and, sad Glory, cast your 
crowned locks as an offering to the flames. for our ca- 
lamity, Scorpus, that you should fall in the prime of youth, 
and so prematurely yoke the black horses of Pluto! Why, 
though you made the goal of the Circus appear so short 
by your rapid driving, should you thus have abbreviated the 
course of your life? — Lib. x. Ep. l. 

Addison, in his Dialogues on Medals, mentions the reverses of 
coins of Vespasian, in which Judaea is represented as a woman in 
sorrow sitting on the ground under a palm-tree, in honour of the 
conquest of Jerusalem; the inscriptions on these Coins are Judcea 
capta, and Victoria Augusti. He observes, "Martial seems to have 



I.] PUBLIC SHOWS. 15 

hinted at the many pieces of painting, and sculpture that were occa- 
sioned by this conquest of Judaea, and which had generally something 
of the palm-tree in them. It begins an epigram on the death of 
Scorpus the charioteer, which, in those degenerate times, was looked 
upon as a public calamity. 

Tristis Idumeas frangat Victoria palmas. 
Plange, Favor, sseva pectora nuda manu 1" 



EPITAPH ON SCOKPUS. 

• 

I am that Scorpus, once the glory of the clamourous 
Circus, the object, Rome, of your plaudits and source of 
your shortlived delights; whom envious Lachesis, when she 
snatched me away in my ninth trieterid (twenty-seventh 
year), mistook -for an old man, because she took into ac- 
count only the number of my palms. — Lib. x. Up. liii. 

The mistake of Lachesis may not improbably have suggested a 
blunder of the Parcce commemorated by Ben Jonson in regard to one 
of Shakspere's little Eyases or children of the chapel, who acted 
plays. 

Years he numbered scarce thirteen 

When fates turn'd cruel. 
Yet three fill'd Zodiacs had been 

The stage's jewel. 
And did act (what now we mourn) 

Old men so duly, 
As, sooth, the Parcse thought him one, 
He play'd so truly. 

The idea of a person's life time being measured otherwise than by 
the number of his years has been adopted, if not borrowed, by many 
writers, as Bacon, Suckling, Young, Drummond ; a lively illustration 
of it is made the point of a French epigram on a lady who was 
rarely seen except at midnight operas and balls. 



16 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Quelle age a cette Phyllis, dont on fait tant de bruit? 

Me demandoit Cliton nagueres. 

II faut, dis-je, vous satisfaire; 
Elle a vingt ans le jour, et cinquante ans la nuit. 

Martial's conceit is pushed to an extravagant length by Habing- 
don, in an epitaph on a son of the Earl of Ayr. 

'Tis false arithmetic to say thy breath 
Expir'd too soon, or irreligious death 
Profan'd thy holy youth: for if thy years 
Be number' d by thy virtues, or our tears, 
Thou didst the old Methusalem outlive. 



XL 

PARIS THE ACTOR 



Traveller ! whosoe'er thou art that treadest the Flami- 
nian way, pass not unheeded this noble tomb of marble. 
The delight of this city, the wit of the Nile, art, grace, 
sportiveness and joy, the glory and the regret of the Roman 
theatre, and all the Venuses and Cupids are buried in this 
tomb where Paris lies. — Lib, xi. Ep. xiv. 

The above epitaph appears to have been imitated in one upon 
Yoiture. 

Etruscse Veneres, Camsense Iberse, 
Hermes Gallicus, et Latina Syren, 
Risus, delicise, dicacitates, 
Lusus, ingenium, joci, lepores, 
Et quicquid fuit elegantiarum 
Quo Yoiturius hoc jacent sepulchro. 

The Yenuses of Tuscany, the Muses of Spain, the Mercury of 
France, and the Syren of Italy, smiles, delights, drollery, repartee, 
with every variety of elegance, lie buried in this tomb with Yoiture. 



I.] PUBLIC SHOWS. 17 

Pope would seem to have alluded to this epitaph on Voiture in 
a letter to Miss Blunt accompanying a present of Yoiture's works : 

The Smiles and Loves had died in Yoiture's death, 
But that for ever in his lines they breathe. 

La Fontaine's epitaph on Moliere may, perhaps, appear traceable 
to Martial's epigram : 

Sous ce tombeau gissent Plaute et Terence, 
Et cependant le seul Moliere y git. 
Leurs trois talens ne fournoient, qu'un esprit, 
Dont le bel art rejouissoit la France. 
lis sont partis, et j'ai peu d'esperance 
De les revoir, malgre tous nos efforts. 
Pour un long temps, selon toute apparence, 
Terence, et Plaute, et Moliere sont mors. 

A similar idea is made the point of an epitaph composed in the 
reign of Henry III. on the famous Simon Montfort, Earl of Leicester, 
in Leonine verse : 

Nunc dantur fato, casuque cadunt iterato 
Cimone sublato, Mars, Paris, atque Cato. 
"Now that Simon is cut off, Mars, Paris, and Cato are given 
over to fate, and die a second death." Indicating, as it is said by 
the chronicler, that Simon was "the peerless man of his time for 
valour, personage and wisdom." 

The following epitaph of Marullus on Pope Innocent VIII. may 
appear to have had its origin in Martial's epigram : 

Spurcities, gula, avaritia, atque ignavia deses, 
Hoc, Octave, jacent quo tegeris tumulo. 
" Filth, Gluttony, Avarice, Indolence, all lie, O Innocent VIIL, 
under the same tomb that covers you." 

In Hearne's curious Discourses is an epitaph, of the time of 
Richard the Second, on Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, which 
apparently indicates an acquaintance with the above epigram of 
Martial : 

Hie pudor Hippolyti, Paridis gena, sensus Ulyssis, 
^Eneee pietas, Hectoris ira jacet. 
"Here lie the modesty of Hippolytus, the beauty of Paris, the 
wisdom of Ulysses, the piety of iEneas, the wrath of Hector." 
mart. c 



CHAPTER II. 
LITERATURE. 



Martial's literary epigrams relate to questions of judg- 
ment and taste, to authors, critics, patrons, reciters, readers, 
plagiaries, Roman books, and distinguished literary cha- 
racters. It is conceived, that it will be allowed, upon an 
inspection of the contents of the present chapter, that 
Martial's epigrams contain much that has served to suggest 
the reflections and fortify the remarks on the Belles Lettres 
and on miscellaneous subjects expressed by very eminent 
authors in modern times; and that they open a valuable 
mine of information to the literary antiquarian. 



XII. 
FRIENDSHIP IN LITERARY FAME 

O Clrinus! you can, if you please, publish epigrams 
that might be read with mine, or in preference to mine; 
yet so great is your regard for an old friend, that my 
fame is dearer to you than your own. In like manner 
Virgil abstained from composing in the metres of Horace, 
though he could have surpassed him in the style of Pin- 
dar; and he yielded to Varius the fame of the Roman 
cothurnus, though he could have declaimed in a more 
powerful tragic vein. It is not uncommon for one friend 



CH. II.] LITERATURE. 19 

to bestow on another gold and land, but to make con- 
cessions of literary pre-eminence is a rare proof of friend- 
ship. — Lib. viii. Ep. xviii. 

Watts has parodied the above Epigram in one addressed by him 
to Dr Hort, brought up in the same dissenting academy with him- 
self, and who was, for a time, a dissenting minister, but who subse- 
quently conformed to the established Church, and became an Arch- 
bishop j his learning and talents are not without a living inheritor. 

So smooth your numbers, friend, your verse so sweet, 

So sharp the jest, and yet the turn so neat, 

That with her Martial Rome would place Chine, 

Home would prefer your sense and thought to mine. 

Yet modest you decline the public stage, 

To fix your friend alone amid th' applauding age. 

So Maro did: the mighty Maro sings 

In vast heroic notes of vast heroic things: 

And leaves the Ode to dance upon his Flaccus' strings. 

He scorn'd to daunt the dear Horatian lyre, 

Though his brave genius flash' d Pindaric fire, 

And at his will could silence all the lyric quire. 

So to his Varius he resigned the praise 

Of the proud buskin and the tragic lays, 

When he could thunder in a loftier vein 

And sing of gods and heroes in a bolder strain. 

A handsome treat, a piece of gold, or so, 

And compliments will every friend bestow ; 

Rarely a Yirgil, a Cirine we meet, 

Who lays his laurels at inferior feet, 

And yields the tenderest point of honor, wit. 

Dryden, in his Essay on Satire, makes use of the above epigram 
in one of the most fulsome and mendacious panegyrics ever published. 
In this he writes, that the Earl of Dorset's Lyric Poems "are the 
delight and wonder of this age and will be the envy of the next, that 
as Shakespeare surpassed the ancients in tragedy, so did the Earl of 
Dorset in satire." Of himself (the author of Absalom and AchitopheT) 
Dryden writes, " I must avow it freely to the world, that I never 

c2 



20 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

attempted anything in satire, wherein I have not studied your 
writings as the most perfect model. I have continually laid them 
before me; and the greatest commendation which my own partiality 
can give to my productions is, that they are copies, and no further 
to be allowed, than as they have something more or less of the ori- 
ginal. Some few touches of your Lordship, some sweet graces which 
I have endeavoured to express after your manner, have made whole 
poems of mine to pass with approbation. Your only fault is, that 
you have not written more; unless I could add another, and that 
yet greater, but I fear for the public the accusation would not be 
true, — that you have written, and out of a vicious modesty will not 
publish. Thus Martial says of Yirgil, that he could have excelled 
Varius in tragedy, and Horace in lyric poetry, but out of deference 
to his friend he attempted neither. The same prevalence of genius 
is in your lordship, but the world cannot pardon your concealing it 
on the same consideration; because we have neither a living Yarius, 
nor a Horace." 

Jeremy Taylor writes, with reference to the above epigram of 
Martial, " I account that one of the greatest demonstrations of real 
friendship is that a friend can sincerely endeavour to have his friend 
advanced in honour, in reputation, in the opinion of art or learning, 
before himself." He then quotes the four concluding lines of the 
epigram, which he renders thus : 

Land, gold, and trifles many give or lend, 
But he that stoops in fame is a rare friend. 
In friendship's orb thou art the brightest star: 
Before thy fame mine thou preferrest far. 



II.] LITERATURE. 21 

XIII. 

SOLID BOOKS. 

Whoever thou art that readest of (Edipus, of Thyestes 
loving deeds of darkness, of Medea, of the Scyllas, what 
do you read else than of monsters? What profit will you 
derive from the rapes of Hylas by the nymphs of Atys, 
of Endymion by the Moon, or from stories of Icarus's falling 
wings, and of Hermaphroditus's hatred of the enamoured 
waters ? Why do you take any pleasure in the absurdities 
of the wretched volumes which contain such fables ? Read 
this booh, which you may truly call your own. You will 
not meet here with Centaurs, Gorgons, or Harpies ; my 
page savours of mankind. — Lib. x. Ep. iv. 

A memorable use has been made of two lines of the above 
epigram, as marked in italics, being a twin motto with a passage 
from Cicero of Sir Edward Coke's famous First Institute, more 
commonly known by the name of Coke- Littleton. The lines are: 

Quid te vana juvant miserse ludibria chartse? 
Hoc lege, quod possis dicere jure, meum est. 

Use has also been apparently made of the above epigram in 
Dr Barrow's well-known commendatory verses prefixed to the second 
edition of the Paradise Lost, dated 1674, in Milton's life-time. 
Martial's epigram commences: 

Qui legis (Edipodem, caligantemque Thyesten, 
Colchidas, et Scyllas, quid nisi monstra legis? 

Dr Barrow's verses begin : 

Qui legis Amissum Paradisum, grandia magni 
Carmina Miltoni, quid nisi cuncta legis? 

The expression, " my page savours of mankind," in the original 
"hominem pagina nostra sapit,^ has been frequently made use of 
in modern times. The motto of the 49th Number of the Rambler 
is taken from this passage of the above epigram: 



22 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [cH. 

Hominem pagina nostra sapit, 
Men and their manners I describe. 

The paper purports to be written by a frequenter of a Coffee- 
house in which he usually spent his day; the manners he pourtrays 
presenting a curious contrast with those of the present times. He 
describes the class of persons who resorted to his Coffee-house at 
different periods of the day; commencing his observations at six o'clock 
in the morning. A certain haberdasher is a political oracle there till 
within a quarter of eight. About this time he is interrupted by 
students of the Inns of Court, some of whom are ready dressed for 
Westminster, with faces as busy as if they were retained in every 
cause there ; whilst others come in their night-gowns to saunter away 
their time, as if they never designed to go thence. Among the lawyers, 
a gentleman in a strawberry sash takes the lead over the rest ; he had 
subscribed to every opera during the last winter. To these succeed a 
class who come to the Coffee-house to transact affairs, or enjoy conver- 
sation. Eubulus is the great authority of the place during the middle 
of the day. Having given an account of the several dynasties from 
day-break till dinner-time, the writer reserves for another occasion 
" the monarchs of the afternoon." 

The same motto of hominem pagina nostra sapit, is taken for the 
136th Number of the Connoisseur, with a version: 

To paint mankind, our sole pretence; 
And all our wisdom, common sense. 

The writer says, "we consider all mankind as sitting for their 
pictures, and endeavour to work up our pieces with lively traits, and 
embellish them with beautiful colouring." The Paper contains some 
useful remarks on the use and abuse of a " knowledge of the world," 
observing that the expression "as it is generally used and under- 
stood, consists not so much in a due reflection on the world's vices 
and follies, as in the practice of them; and that those who consider 
themselves best acquainted with the world, are either the dupes of 
fashion or slaves of interest." " A knowledge of the world is, also, 
supposed to lie within the narrow compass of every man's own sphere 
of life, and receives a different interpretation in different stations." 
The author's views are illustrated by drawing the characters of two 
men of the world, Sir Harry Flash, who can calculate odds as well 



II.] LITERATURE. 23 

as " Hoyle or Demoivre," and his brother Richard, an alderman, who 
understands " the rise and fall of stocks better than any Jew." 

The same passage is taken for the motto of the 71st Number of 
the Adventurer, with a version: 

We strive to paint the manners and the mind. 

The Paper consists of a collection of letters from correspondents 
upon miscellaneous subjects, which the writer, in his own opinion, 
thinks more interesting than "the studied paragraphs of Pliny, or 
the pompous declamations of Barsac, as they contain just pictures of 
life and manners, and are the genuine emanations of nature." The 
reader, after a perusal of the Adventurer's specimens will, probably, 
be of opinion that they are inferior to Pliny's paintings, both of the 
manners and of the mind. 

Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, applies the distich of 
Martial in which the words Hominem pagina nostra sapit occur 
to his own book; and he gives the following version of it: 

No Centaurs here, nor Gorgons look to find, 
My subject is of man, and human kind. 



XIV. 

UNIFORM BRILLIANCY. 

You wish to give an exquisite turn to every thing you 
say : speak sometimes merely well ; speak sometimes neither 
well nor ill ; speak sometimes ill. — Lib. x. Ep. xlvi. 

The original Latin lines of this epigram are quoted by Archbishop 
Whately in his Treatise on Rhetoric, by way of giving point to the 
following remarks, which are an amplification of Martial's pithy 
advice. 

The Archbishop is cautioning his readers (as his marginal note 
indicates) against "uniform brilliancy." He writes, "An author 
should guard against the vain ambition of expressing every thing 
in an equally high-wrought, brilliant and forcible style. The neglect 



24 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

of this caution often occasions the imitation of the best models to 
prove detrimental. When the admiration of some fine and animated 
passages leads a young writer to take those passages for his general 
model, and to endeavour to make every sentence he composes equally 
fine, he will, on the contrary, give a flatness to the whole, and de- 
stroy the effect of those portions which would have been forcible 
if they had been allowed to stand prominent. To brighten the dark 
parts of a picture, produces much the same result as if one had 
darkened the bright parts; in either case there is a want of relief 
and contrast; and composition, as well as painting, has its lights and 
shades, which must be distributed with no less skill, if we would 
produce the desired effect." 

In a note to this passage, the Archbishop cites the distich which 
constitutes the above epigram, with the omnia in Roman text, the 
rest being in Italics, thus: 

Omnia vult belle Matho dicere; die aliquando 
Et bene; die neutrum: die aliquando male. 



XV. 

RELEVANCY. 



My lawsuit, which now is being tried by the Court, does 
not relate to manslaughter, or poison, or violence, but is 
about three little goats. I complain that mj neighbour has 
stolen them from me : the judge requires this to be proved. 
You, Posthumus, my advocate, talk about the battle of 
Cannse and the Mithridatic war, and Carthaginian perjuries, 
Sylla, Marius and Mucius, all with a stunning voice, and 
the whole gesture of your hand. After this, Posthumus, it 
is time to say something about my three little goats. — Lib. 
vi. Ep. xix. 

This epigram is ingrafted into Dr Parr's Preface to Bellenden 
(in Latin) ; wherein he reviews the political characters of the states- 



n.] LITERATURE. 25 

men of his day (1787), and especially the attacks of Pitt upon Lord 
North, on account of the American war, even after its termination. 
The following translation of the passage in Dr Parr's Preface was 
published in 1788: 

" The American war did certainly commence and was afterwards 
conducted under the most unhappy auspices. This has constantly 
been, in the hands of the minister, a most tremendous instrument 
of torture, directed against the security and fame of an individual. 
But to contemplate, without ridicule, incidents which have found 
admission into our ' Senate requires no small strength o# muscle. 
Somewhat of the most minute importance has been the proposed 
subject of debate : the chosen band has been assembled and the 
young men composing it have indulged in obstreperous clamour ; all has 
been noisy mirth and tumultuous commotion. After a while a certain 
person, in the pride of office, makes his entrance; instantly he rises 
from his place and losing gradual remembrance of the unimportant 
matter to be discussed, he begins a terrible story of blood and 
wounds; talks of Sylla and Marius, of the atrociousness of Punic 
perfidy, with the loudest vehemence of voice and action: he calls 
heaven and earth to witness that the American war was the sole 
occasion of the matter in question, however insignificant; he pretends 
that of the American war Lord North was the one and only cause." 

The learned reader will find in Dr Parr's Latin preface a much 
closer approximation to Martial and his goats than in the trans- 
lation. Dr Parr writes, "Res qucedam agenda est de tribus capellis; 
and, afterwards, the Certain One (Pitt) trium capellarum paululum 
immemor multa de vi et csede, multa de Syllis et Mariis, multa de 
Cannis et perjuriis Punici furoris lingua personat audacissima et 
manu tota. Deos Hominesque testatur bellum Americanum in causa 
fuisse cur Titius istas tres capellas a O&iofuratus sit." 



26 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

XVI. 

PROLIXITY. 

When you asked with a loud voice for seven clepsydrw 
(hour-glasses of water), the unwilling judge assigned them 
to you. You talk very tediously for a long time, and you 
lie half on your back, drinking warm water from glass 
goblets p that you may at length satisfy at once your talk- 
ing against time, and your thirst, you had better now drink 
out of your own clepsydrse. — Lib. vi. Ep. xxxv. 

Becker, in his Gallus, in an excursus on the Roman Clocks, 
refers, for an illustration of the uses of the Clepsydrce, to the above 
epigram, and to another in the eighth book, in which a man exposed 
bis taciturnity by asking fbr too many Clepsydrce. These epigrams 
illustrate several of Pliny's Letters. 

Barrington, in his Observations on the Ancient Statutes, in treating 
of a Statute of Henry VIII. concerning fines pro pulchre placitando 
(imposed for mistakes of pleading), notices that, in some countries, 
advocates have been subjected to penalties even for prolixity, as by 
ordinances of Charles VII. of France and his successors. He ob- 
serves that " the Roman advocates used to make a sort of agreement 
with the Court, how many hours they might have liberty to speak in 
defence of their clients, as appears by the following epigram of 
Martial." He then quotes at length the above epigram. 



XVII. 

ROUGHNESS AND OBSCURITY. 

You approve of no verses which flow in a smooth 
measure, but only such as fall over crags (salebras, from 
saltuSj requiring a leap) and lofty rocks. In your opinion 
the epitaph beginning "Here lies Metrophanes, the colu- 



II.] LITERATURE. 27 

mella of Lucilius," has greater charms than the epic of 
Homer. With astonishment you pore over whatever the 
ancient poets Accius and Pacuvius vomit forth, and prefer 
to modern forms of speech, such as terrce frugiferce (of 
the fruit-bearing earth), the obsolete words terrdi frugiferdi. 
— Lib. xi. Ep. xc. 

Watts, in the Preface to his poems, observes, "I could never 
believe that roughness and obscurity added anything to the true 
grandeur of a poem ; nor will I ever affect archaisms, exoticisms, and 
a quaint uncouthness of speech, in order to become perfectly Mil- 
tonian. The oddness of an antique sound gives but a false pleasure 
to the ear, and abases the true relish, even where it works delight. 
There were some such judges of poesy among the old Romans ; and 
Martial ingeniously laughs at one of them, that was pleased even to 
astonishment with obsolete words and figures : 

Attonitusque legis, terrdi frugiferdi. 

So the ill-drawn postures and distortions of shape that we meet 
with in Chinese pictures charm a sickly fancy by their very awk- 
wardness : so a distempered appetite will chew coals and sand, and 
pronounce them gustful." These remarks of Watts have a close 
resemblance to what Dry den writes in the Preface to his second Mis- 
cellany, "Can I not admire the height of Milton's invention, and 
the strength of his expression, without defending his antiquated 
words, and the perpetual harshness of their sound ?" 

Ben Jonson, in his Discoveries, when treating of Ingeniorum 
discrimina (the diversities of genius in authors) notices those writers 
who have the fault reprehended in the above epigram, to which he 
makes express reference. He inflicts his ridicule upon them, and 
also upon those who run into the opposite extreme, and whom he 
calls Women's Poets. And in a later part of his Discoveries he writes, 
" You admire no poems but such as run, like a brewer's cart upon the 
stones, hobbling : 

Et quae per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt, 
Accius et quidquid Pacuviusque vomunt. 
Attonitusque legis terrai, frugiferai." 



28 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

XVIII. 

POETIC LICENCE. 

Name ! born among violets and roses, by which the best 
part of the year is designated; which savours of Hybla 
and of Attic flowers; whose perfume is like that of the 
Phoenix's nest. Name! sweeter than blessed nectar, and 
by which Atys would rather have been called than by 
his own ; whose owner tempereth with water the cups of 
the thunderer (Domitian), whilst to his voice, when heard 
in the Parrhasian palace, the Venuses and the Graces re- 
spond. I would wish not to express in an unskilful verse 
a Name so noble, soft, and delicate. But thou, contu- 
macious syllable, art repugnant to my endeavours! There 
are poets, indeed, who use the word Earinon, but they are 
Greek poets, to whom every licence is allowable. It may 
be proper enough for them to make the same syllable both 
long and short in the same line; but it is not permitted 
for us Romans to be eloquent after this fashion, we pay 
our homage to severer muses. — Lib. ix. Ep. xn. 

The above epigram, and others of Martial upon Domitian's cup- 
bearer, are degrading examples of incense kindled at the Muse's 
flame : there is, however, a terseness in the last two lines which is 
adapted to quotation; as in a note to the Pursuits of Literature, with 
reference to Warton's edition of Pope's Works, containing Pope's 
imitation of the Second Satire of the first book of Horace, which 
Pope had not printed in his works himself, the author writes, 
" I, though an anonymous layman, refuse to print the passage in full 
which the Reverend Doctor Warton has printed and sanctioned with 
his name as editor of Pope's Works, 

Nobis non licet esse tarn disertis 
Qui Musas colimus severiores." 

Martial's Musas severiores may, perhaps, be thought to have been 
present to the mind of the learned Selden, on the occasion on which 



II.] LITERATURE. 29 

he strangely appeared as a Poet, in commendatory verses to Brown's 

Pastorals. 

So much a stranger my severer muse 
Is not to love-strains, or a shepherd's reed, 
But that she knows some rites of Phoebus' dues, 
Of Pan, of Pallas, and her sister's meed. 



XIX. 

DIFFICULT TRIFLES. 

I am not so bad a poet as to take glory to myself for 
the composition of back-reading {supino) verses, like those 
invented by Sotades, nor of verses containing a Greek echo, 
nor of those making the beautiful Atys discourse in effemi- 
nate Galliambics. What, if you were to bid Ladas, the swift 
runner, against his will to race up and down the narrow 
uplifted plank of the Petaurum? (a theatrical machine for 
raising performers human or bestial in the air.) It is 
disgraceful to be engaged in difficult trifles; and the labour 
spent on frivolities is foolish. Let Palsemon write verses for 
the million (circulis) ; it is my wish to please select ears. — 
Lib. ii. Ep. lxxxvi. 

The commentators on Martial give examples of supine verses, and 
echoes, and explain the action of the petaurum: It must be observed 
in defence of Galliambic verses, that the only relic we have of them 
is in the Atys of Catullus, of which Dryden writes, that " no modern 
poet can put into his own language the energy of the Atys of Ca- 
tullus." Voltaire observes that the ancients did not employ the 
rondeau. 

The famous Selden, in a second poetic flight, borrows a com- 
pliment on Ben Jonson from the above epigram, viz. : 
Carmina circulis Palsemon 
Scribat * * Placere 

Te doctis juvat auribus, placere 
Te raris juvat auribus. 



30 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Rollin, in his Belles Lettres, observes that it is to be little ac- 
quainted with the value of time to employ it in the study of such 
difficulties and obscurities as are at the same time unnecessary, and 
often trifling and vain. A judicious master, he writes, will carefully 
avoid falling into this mistake, for it is a pitiful vanity to be over 
curious in knowing all that the worst authors have said upon a 
subject. He quotes two lines of Martial's epigram : 

Turpe est difficiles habere nugas, 
Et stultus labor est ineptiarum. 

Which the translator of Rollin renders: 

The deep and dull researches of the schools, 
Are but the busy indolence of fools. 

The motto of the 470th number of the Spectator, by Addison, is 
taken from the above epigram : 

Turpe est difficiles habere nugas, 
Et stultus labor est ineptiarum. 

This Paper contains a censure on the various readings of classic 
authors, which, as Addison complains, sometimes take up half the 
volume of a work. Addison quotes an old song consisting of four 
stanzas, and amuses his readers with burlesque various readings, 
which he imagines to be suggested in it by the critics. 

The motto of the 177th number of the Rambler is: 

Turpe est difficiles habere nugas. 

This Paper contains the description of a club of virtuosos. One, 
Hirsutus by name, is occupied in amassing all English books published 
in black letter; this search he had pursued so diligently that he was 
able to show the deficiencies of the best catalogues. He had long since 
completed his Caxton, had three sheets of Treveris unknown to the 
antiquaries, and wanted to a perfect Pynson but two volumes, of 
which one was promised him as a legacy by its present possessor, and 
the other he was resolved to buy at whatever price, when Quis- 
quilius's library should be sold. " When he was merry, he regaled 
us with a quotation from the Shippe of Foles" Ferratus had just 
" completed his set of English copper, having received, in a handful of 
change, the only halfpenny wanting to his collection, and of which he 



II.] LITERATURE. 31 

had been long in search." Cartophylax had been for seven years per- 
fecting his series of gazettes, " but had long wanted a single paper, 
which, when he despaired of obtaining it, was sent him wrapped 
round a parcel of tobacco." In the course of his strictures in this 
paper, Johnson does not, perhaps/ give due credit to the labours of 
Archaeologists; he observes, however, that "whatever busies the 
mind without corrupting it, has, at least, this use, that it rescues 
the day from idleness, and he that is never idle will not often be 
vicious." 

Ben Jonson, in his Execration upon Vulcan, composed on the 
occasion of the burning of his books and literary papers, writes con- 
cerning the difficiles nugce of Martial : 

Had I compiled from Amadis de Gaul, 

The Esplandians, Arthurs, Palmerins, and all 

The learned library of Don Quixote, 

And so some goodlier monster (Ep. xm.) had begot : 

Or spun out riddles, or weav'd fifty tomes 

Of Logographs, or curious Palindromes, 

Or pumped for those hard trifles, Anagrams, 

Or Eteostics, or your finer flams 

Of eggs, and halberds, cradles, and a hearse, 

A pair of scissors, and a comb in verse ; 

Thou then had'st had some colour for thy flames 

On such my serious follies. 



XX. 

FIT THEMES. 



When you ask for lively (vivida) epigrams, and propose 
grave (rnortua) subjects, what result can you anticipate? 
You ask for the honey of Hybla or Hymettus to be pro- 
duced, and you place before an Attic bee nothing but 
Corsican thyme. — Lib. xi. Ep. xlii. 



32 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

The motto of the 101st number of the Rambler consists of the 
two concluding lines of the epigram, 

Mella jubes Hyblsea tibi vel Hymettia nasci, 
Et thyma Cecropise Corsica ponis api: 
with the following version : 

Alas! dear sir, you try in vain 
Impossibilities to gain; 
No bee from Corsica's rank juice, 
Hyblsean honey can produce. 

The Paper contains an account of a member of society famous for 
his jocularity, and universally sought after in London circles. An 
admiring friend invites him into the country for the purpose of 
showing him off to neighbouring squires ; but the scheme turns out 
a failure. The man of wit, after various unsuccessful attempts at 
electrifying a country dinner-party with his brilliancy, hears the 
guests, as at night they are walking homewards across his host's 
court, "murmuring at the loss of the day, and inquiring whether 
any man would pay a second visit to a house haunted by a wit." 
Dr Johnson concludes this account by remarking " that invention is 
not wholly at the command of its possessor ; that the power of 
pleasing is very often obstructed by the desire; that all expectation 
lessens surprise, yet that some surprise is necessary to gaiety; and 
that those who desire to partake of the pleasure of wit must con- 
tribute to its production, since the mind stagnates without external 
ventilation, and that effervescence of the fancy which flashes into 
transport, can be raised only by the infusion of dissimilar ideas." 

Becker gives his Gallus Corsican honey at a poor inn, for which 
infliction he quotes the above epigram. 



XXI. 

VICES, NOT PERSONS. 

O, Gallus I more candid than the ancient Sabines, whose 
benevolence surpasses that of the Attic sage (Socrates), may 



II.] LITERATURE. 33 

Venus so bless you with her unquenchable torch that you 
may constantly reside in the splendid mansion of your father- 
in-law, upon condition of your defending me from any 
imputations that verses stained with green rust (viridi ceru- 
gine) are mine, or that such verses are composed by any 
poet who is read. In my works a rule has always been ob- 
served to speak of vices, but to spare persons. — Lib. x. Ep. 

XXXIII. 

Ben Jonson, in the Prologue to his play of the Silent Woman, 
writes : 

And still 't hath been the praise of all best times, 
So persons were not touch'd, to tax the crimes. 

****** 
If any yet will, with particular sleight 
Of application wrest what he doth write, 
And that he meant, or him, or her, will say: 
They make a libel, which he made a play. 

And in his dedication to the "two famous Universities" of his play of 
the Fox, in answer to an imputation upon his dramas, which he 
says had been made, that " not his youngest infant but had come into 
the world with all his teeth," he asks, "Where have I been par- 
ticular 1 Where personal, except to a mimic, cheater, bawd or buf- 
foon 1 Yet to which of these so pointedly that he might not wisely 
have dissembled his disease V 

Duport, in his commendatory verses on Ben Jonson, writes : 

Nee quern tua fabula mordet 
Dente Theonino, sed pravis aspera tantum 
Moribus, insanum multo sale defricat sevum. 

Nevertheless, it may be thought that, in the play of the Tale of 
a Tub, Inigo Jones is torn by Jonson with a Theonine tooth. 

Dryden, in a preface to his play of the Mock Astrologer, after 
confessing that he could not "write humour," and observing that 
Jonson was the " only man of all ages and nations who has performed 
it well, and that but in three or four of his comedies ; the rest being 
but the same humours a little varied and written worse. Neither 
was it more allowable in him, than it is in our present poets, to 

MART. D 



34 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

represent the follies of particular persons; of which many have 
accused him. Parcere personis, dicere de vitiis (to spare persons, to 
speak of vices), is the rule of plays." Dryden appears to have dis- 
regarded this rule as far as it may be applicable to political plays ; 
and no play ever contained a more gross libel than that on Lord 
Shaftesbury, in Venice Preserved, the celebrated production of one of 
Dryden's "present poets." 

According to a song in the Beggar's Opera, the declaimer on 
abstract vices-is not always sure of not giving offence to persons. 

When you censure the age, 

Be cautious and sage, 
Lest the courtiers offended should be ; 

If you mention vice or bribe, 

'Tis so pat to all the tribe, 
Each cries — "That was levell'd at me," 



XXII. 
EXTEMPORARY POEMS. 

Pardon what is extemporary; he does not deserve to 
incur your displeasure who is in haste to give you pleasure, 
Domitian! — Spect. xxxi. 

In Ben Jonson's Devices for the Pageant of King James I. passing 
to his coronation, the figure of the Genius of the City of London 
accosts the king. The genius is represented as a " personage richly 
attired, reverend, and antique : his hair long and white, covered with 
a wreathe of plane-tree, which is said to be arbor genialis; his mantle 
of purple, and buskins of that colour : he held, in one hand, a goblet, 
in the other a branch full of little twigs, to signify increase and in- 
dulgence ; London was supported by Bouleutes and Polemius, two 
figures typifying, the former the council, the latter the warlike force 
of the city." Genius thus concludes her congratulation : 

Here ends my city's office, here it breaks ; 

Yet with my tongue and this pure heart she speaks 



II.] LITERATURE. 35 

A short farewell : and, lower than thy feet, 
With fervent thanks, thy royal pains doth greet. 
Pardon, if my abruptness breed disease : 
"He merits not to offend, that hastes to please." 

At the entertainment of the kings of England and Denmark, at 
Theobald's, of which the devices were prepared by Ben Jonson, 
among various inscriptions on walls, the following is taken from the 
above epigram, substituting only the plural for the singular number, 
so as to include a pair of kings : — 

Date veniam subitis. 

Pardon sudden (extemporary) things. 

At the end of an " epigram on the Prince's birth" Ben Jonson 

appends that part of the above epigram which is appropriate to a 

sudden incident, 

Non displicuisse meretur, 

Festinat, Caesar, qui placuisse tibi. 



XXIII. 

BOOKS, PARTLY GOOD, PARTLY BAD, PARTLY 
INDIFFERENT. 

Some of my epigrams are good, some moderately so, 
more bad ; there is no other way, Avitus, of making a book. 
— Lib. i. Ep. xvii. 

In the proceedings against Frend before the Vice- Chancellor of 
Cambridge for the publication of a pamphlet entitled Peace and 
Union, which is reported in the 22nd volume of the State Trials, 
the publication of the pamphlet was proved by a Dr Dickens, to 
whom Mr Frend had given a copy, which Dr Dickens identified by 
his having written on the fly-leaf, 

Sunt bona, sunt qusedam mediocria_, sunt mala plura. 
Sir T. Parkyns, in his Progymnasmata, when apologizing for the 
contents of his book, writes : " And though Martial speaks for me, 

d2 



36 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

'tis not a book, if not so ; and though I set not a greater value on a 
spider's web, for being spun out of its own bowels ; however, if, upon 
perusal of my treatise on wrestling, my readers shall laugh at it till 
they lie down, I hope they will be so ingenuous as to own the fall" 
The motto of the 240th number of the Spectator is, 

Aliter non fit, Avite, liber. 
Of such materials, Sir, are books composed. 

The Paper consists of various letters on miscellaneous subjects 
addressed to the Spectator, among which there are undoubtedly mala 
plura. 

The motto of the 581st number of the Spectator is : 

Sunt bona, sunt quae dam mediocria, sunt mala plura. 
Some good, some bad, some neither one nor t'other. 

The Paper consists of the Spectators answers to various letters 
which he had received, such as " I think it beneath my Spectatorial 
dignity to concern myself in the affair of the boiled dumpling." 
" Harriet is a good girl, but must not curtsey to folks she does not 
know." " I shall consult some literati on the project sent me for the 
discovery of the longitude," &c. It would be difficult to predicate of 
these answers, " sunt bona." 



XXIV. 

CRITICS COMPARED TO COOKS. 

The reader and the hearer approve of my small books, 
but a certain critic objects that they are not finished to a 
nicety. I do not take this censure much to heart, for I 
would wish that the courses of my dinner should afford plea- 
sure to guests rather than to cooks. — Lib. ix. Ep. lxxxiii. 

Harrington, Queen Elizabeth's godson, gave the following poetical 
version of the above epigram : 



II.] LITERATURE. 37 

The readers and the hearers like my books, 
And, yet, some writers cannot them digest: 
But what care I? for when I make a feast, 
I would my guests should praise it, not the cooks. 

In Ben Jonson's Preface to his play of the Silent Woman, we 
find: 

But in this age a sect of writers are, 

That only for particular likings care, 

And will taste nothing that is popular. 

With such we mingle neither brains nor breasts, 

Our wishes, like to those make public feasts, 

Are not to please the cook's taste, but the guests. 

Lord Bacon, in his treatise on the Advancement of Learning, thus 
applies the concluding point of the above epigram, with reference to 
the variety of metres in poetry : " Wherein though men in learned 
tongues do tie themselves to the ancient measures, yet, in modern 
languages, it seemeth to me as free to make new measures of verses 
as of dances ; for a dance is a measured pace, as a verse is a measured 
speech. In these things the sense is better judge than the art : 

Ccense fercula nostrse 
Mallem convivis, quam placuisse cocis." 



XXV. 

VATICAN WINE FOR CRITICS. 

If my little book contains anything tender and sweet; 
if my bland page tends to the honour of any one, you deem 
me flat; and when I place before you the choice morsels 
of a Laurentian boar, you prefer gnawing its tough ribs. 
Drink Vatican wine (Vaticana bibas), if you prefer what is 
nearest to vinegar; my flagon evidently does not agree with 
your stomach (nonfacit ad stomachum). — Lib. x. Ep. xly. 



38 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Ben Jonson, in some remarks prefixed to his Masque of Hymen, 
which contain a retort on certain critics who had animadverted on 
his practice of making use of classical authors for the embellishment 
of his Masques, thus writes, " However some may squeamishly cry 
out that all endeavour of learning and sharpness in these transitory 
devices, especially where it steps beyond their little, or no brain 
at all, is superfluous, I am contented that these fastidious stomaclis 
should leave my full tables, and enjoy at home their clean empty 
trenchers fittest for such airy tastes: when, perhaps, a few Italian 
herbs picked up and made into a salad may find sweeter acceptance 
than all the most nourishing and sound meats in the world. For 
these men's opinions, let me not answer, O Muses! It is not my 
fault, if I fill them out nectar, and they run to metheglin. 

Vaticana bibant, si delectantur. 

All the courtesy I can do them, is to cry again, 

Prsetereant, si quid non facit ad stomachum." 



XXVI. 

MISSPENT CRITICISM. 



Although you have always a scoffing nose, and may be 
said to be a nose yourself, such a nose as Atlas himself 
would decline to bear on his shoulders; and though you 
can even deride the deriding Mime Latinus, you cannot say 
more against my trifles than I have said myself. Why will 
you take pleasure in biting a tooth with a tooth? If you 
seek to be satiated, you must take flesh. Do not lose your 
labour ; reserve your venom for those who are self-admirers ; 
/ know that my verses are nothing at all; and yet they are 
not altogether nothing, if you come to their perusal with a 
candid ear, and not with a morning brow. — Lib. xiii. Ep. II, 



II.] LITERATURE. 39 

The expression nos hcec novimus esse nihil, has been urged by 
several modern writers by way of a modest apology for the trivial 
nature of some of their compositions. Thus, it is taken for the motto 
of the 158th number of the Spectator, with a version "We know 
these things to be mere trifles." The paper, which is written by 
Steele, consists of four letters from correspondents upon trifling sub- 
jects. The same motto is taken for P. Whitehead's poem on boxing, 
entitled the Gymnasiad. 

Burton, in the Preface to his Anatomy of Melancholy, quotes 
Martial's epigram, with a version meant for poetical: 

Wert thou all scoffs and flouts, a very Momus, 
Than we ourselves thou canst not say worse of us. 

Montaigne, in -his Essay on Presumption, observes, that he is not 
obliged to utter no absurdities, provided he be not deceived by them, 
and knows them to be such, quoting Martial's epigram, which is thus 
rendered by his translator : 

Be nosed, be all nose, till thy nose appear 
So great that Atlas it refuse to bear; 
Though even against Latinus thou inveigh, 
Against my trifles thou no more can'st say 
Than I have said myself. Then to what end 
Should we to render tooth for tooth contend? 
You must have flesh if you'll be full, my Priend ! 
Lose not thy labour; but on those who do 
Admire themselves thy utmost venom throw ; 
That these things nothing are, full well we know. 



XXVII. 

RHINOCEROS' NOSES. 

Little Book! you want to inhabit the shops of the 
Argilenta Quarter (Paternoster Row), now that my writing- 
desk opens you a way out. You are ignorant, alas ! you are 



40 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

ignorant of the fastidiousness of dominant Rome. Believe 
me, the descendants of Mars are over-sagacious. There were 
never more snortings heard: old men, and young men, and 
the very boys have Rhinoceros' noses. AVhen you expect to 
hear grand sophoses (exclamations of wisely!), when you are 
endeavouring to catch kisses, you will be tossed to the stars 
from a shaken-out blanket. Nevertheless, in order that you 
may avoid frequent effacings at the hand of your master, 
and the marks of a sad reed which obliterates your extrava- 
gances, you wantonly wish to fly at liberty through the air. 
Go, fly, but you might be safer at home. — Lib. 1. Ep. iv. 

The line of the epigram: 

Ibis ab excusso, missus ad astra, sago. 

(You will find your way to the stars on a mission from a shaken-out 
blanket), has rung upon many an ear; for, by help of laying stress 
on the middle and final o in pronunciation, it was the line used, 
in the author's time at Eton, during the elevating sport of tossing 
in a blanket. 

Fielding adopts as the motto of the 3rd number of the Covent- 
Garden Journal : 

Majores nunquam ronchi: juvenesque, senesque, 
Et pueri nasum rhinocerotis habent. 

Of which he gives a version characteristic of his peculiar vein: 
No town can such a gang of Critics show, 
Even boys turn up that nose they cannot blow. 

The Paper contains a humorous detail of rules for the admission 
of critics upon the roll of a court proposed to be holden before the 
Censor of Great Britain. For reasons given, critics are not re- 
quired to be men of genius, or of learning; they should be able to 
read, and should in fact read at least ten pages of every work they, 
criticise ; when they condemn, they should give some reason for their 
judgment, and should not indulge in the words, poor stuff, wretched 
stuff, bad stuff, sad stuff, low stuff, paltry stuff; all which stuffs are 
to be banished from the mouths of our critics. Fielding takes as a 
motto to his published Comedy of the Intriguing Chambermaid, acted 



II.] LITERATURE. 41 

at Drury Lane in 1733, the expression of Martial, Major es nusquam 
ronchi. 

Vincent Bourne makes use of Martial's epigram in a different 
sense from the original ; he has a Latin epigram which he entitles : 

Poteris tutior esse domi. 
You will be safer at home. 

Dum Mater metuit virgse ne verbera lsedant, 
Ipsa domi puerum servat, et ipsa docet. 

Ipsa doce puerum mater tarn blandula, possit 
Tutus ut esse domi, stultus et esse foris. 

Of the Rhinoceros Nose, Ben Jonson writes, in an epigram on 
Don Surly: 

He speaks to men with a rhinocerotes nose, 
Which he thinks great; and so reads verses too, 
And that is done, as he saw great men do. 

Boileau prefaces his Epistle a mes vers, with a quotation from 
the above epigram of Martial ; and, apparently, in imitation of it he 
writes : 

J'ay beau vous arrester, ma remonstrance est vaine; 
Allez, partez, mes vers, dernier fruit de ma veine, 
C'est trop languir chez moi dans un obscur sejour, 
La prison vous deplaist, vous cherchez le grand jour, 
Et deja chez Barbin, ambitieux libelles, 
Yous brulez d'etailler vos feuilles criminelles. 



XXVIII. 

RECIPROCATING CRITICS. 

Whilst you do not publish any poem of your own, you 
carp at mine: do not carp at mine, or, if you do, publish 
yours. — Lib. i. Ep. xcn. 

The above epigram would not be deserving of notice for any sense 
or wit contained in it, but that it has been honoured by the uses 



42 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

made of it, chiefly, as it may seem, on account of its terseness of 
expression. 

Sir Robert Atkyns, in his well-known argument on the Dis- 
pensing Power, censures Chief- Justice Vaughan somewhat unrea- 
sonably, because he had found fault with Lord Coke's definition of 
a dispensation, but had not substituted any definition of his own. 
He writes, "Though Chief-Justice Yaughan quarrels with Lord 
Coke's definition, and says that it is ignotum per ignotius; yet, under 
favour, if he disliked that, he should have given us a better Carpere 
vel noli nostra, vel ede tua." 

Lord Coke concludes the Preface to his celebrated Reports, ho- 
noured by the appellation of The Reports, by adopting part of the 
above epigram, and supplying half an hexameter of his own ; thus he 
writes, " and so I conclude with the poet : 

Cum tua non edas, his utere, et annue, lector, 
Carpere vel noli nostra, vel ede tua." 



XXIX. 

DECEASED POETS. 



Vacerra! you admire only the ancients; your praise is 
restricted to the deceased poets. Pardon me, Vacerra, if I 
do not think your praise of so much value as to die for it. 
— Lib. viii. Ep. lxix. 

Fuller, in the preface to his Worthies, anticipates various excep- 
tions to his book, which he enumerates with its answers. 

"Exception 17. You have omitted many memorable persons still 
surviving, as meriting as any you have inserted. 

Answer. The return of Martial, in a case not much unlike, may 
much befriend me : 

Miraris veteres, Yacerra, solos, 
Nee laudas nisi mortuos poetas 



II.] LITERATURE. 43 

Ignoscas, petinius, Vacerra: tanti 
Non est, ut placeam tibi, perire. 

Deceased authors thou admir'st alone, 
And only praisest poets dead and gone: 
Vacerra, pardon me, I will not buy 
Thy praise so dear, as for the same to die. 

All men being like minded with Martial herein, none surviving will 
distaste their omission in a work confined to the memories of the 
departed." 

Cowley, in the preface to his works, talks of retiring to the 
American plantations, and of the death of his Muse ; on which sub- 
ject he quotes a line from Martial's epigram, with a variation ; viz. 
" Tanti est ut placeam tibi, perire" adding, that it was the " un- 
doubted privilege of deceased poets to be read with more favour than 
the living." 

Jeremy Taylor, in his Discourse mi Remedies against the Fear of 
Death, quotes a line from Martial's epigram, "Nee laudas nisi mortuos 
poetas," upon which he observes : " Certain it is that death hath 
some good upon its proper stock; praise, and a fair memory, a re- 
verence and religion towards the deceased so great that it is counted 
dishonour to speak evil of the dead." 



XXX. 

POSTHUMOUS WOKKS. 

Faustinus, at length present your books to the public, 
they are works matured in a learned breast, which the Citadel 
of Athens will not condemn, nor our experienced country- 
men pass over (as rejected candidates) in silence. Do you 
hesitate to let in Fame when standing for admittance be- 
fore your threshold, and does it grieve you to reap the 
rewards of your own diligence? May your poems, which 
will survive you, begin to live by your means. The glory 
which is shed upon ashes arrives full late. — Lib. i. Ep. xxvi. 



44 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

The above epigram furnishes the motto taken for the edition of 
the posthumous poems of Lovelace published a.d. 1659, with the 
following title : " Posthume Poems of Richard Lovelace, Esq. 
Those honours come too late, 
That on our ashes waite." 
The motto of the 129th number of the Connoisseur is 
Post cineres gloria sera venit. 
Fame to our ashes comes, alas! too late, 
And praise smells rank upon the coffin-plate. 

The Paper consists of a letter from Thomas Vainall, consulting 
the Connoisseur as to the mode of bequeathing his fortune in a manner 
to " buy fame with it after his death." 

Jeremy Taylor writes, in reference to the conclusion of the above 
epigram of Martial, which he cites, " It is in piety, as in fame and 
reputation, he secures a good name but loosely, that trusts his fame 
and celebrity only to his ashes." 



XXXI. 

IMAGES IK VERSE AND IN PAINTING. 

This which you behold is the face of my Camonus ; this 
is his picture when he was young; his countenance became 
more manly by twenty years, and a beard had, as if joy- 
fully, darkened his cheeks; a beard of which the bright 
down had scattered the honours of its' first tonsure. The 
Parcse grew envious, and cut the thread of his life before 
it was fully spun. An urn brought his ashes to his father 
from a distant funeral pyre; but that this picture should 
not be the sole representation of the youth, behold a greater 
image in my verses. — Lib. ix. Ep. lxxviii. 

In a copy of Waller's poems, published in 1686, "at the blew 
anchor in the lower walk of the new exchange," is a frontispiece of 



II.] LITERATURE. 45 

Waller's portrait, with an inscription round it of Effigies Edmundi 
Wallerii, and underneath the words, from the above epigram, 
Sed Carmina major imago. 
To the like effect Cartwright concludes his elegy on Ben Jonson, 
Yet if he do not at his full appear, 
Survey him in his works, and know him there. 
The bringing an urn from a distance is beautifully described by 
Martial : 

Rettulit ossa sinu cari Nigrina mariti, 

Et questa est longas non satis esse vias: 
Cumque daret sanctam tumulis quibus invidet, urnam, 
Visa sibi est rapto bis viduata viro. 



XXXII. 

A RECITER OF BOUGHT VERSES. 

Paulus buys verses ; Paulus recites his own verses. And 
they are his own, for that which you buy, you have a right 
(possis jure) to call yours. — Lib. n. Ep. xx. 

The point in the above epigram, which Martial repeats in Various 
forms, may not be devoid of interest, if it may possibly have been 
the germ of a very celebrated epigram made upon Pope Alexander, 
quoted by Coke and Bacon : 

Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum, 
Vendere jure potest, emerat ille prius. 

An epigram on Leo X. dying without having received extreme 
unction, and the sale of whose Indulgences had such important re- 
sults, may, in like manner, not very improbably, be traceable to 
Martial's epigram : 

Leon sans sacramens expire, 
Comment les auroit-il regus? 
Avant sa mort le Maitre Sire 
Des long-tems les avoit vendus. 



46 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

XXXIII. 

AUTHOR MADE BY RECITATION. 

Fidentinus! the book you are reciting is mine, but 
you recite it so badly that it begins to be yours. — Lib, i. 
Up. xxxix. 

The conclusion of the above epigram, thus slightly varied, Bum 
recitas incipit esse tuus, is adopted by Addison as a motto for the 
568th number of the Spectator, in which he represents that Mr Spec- 
tator joined a party of smokers at a coffee-house, and upon his taking 
up the last Spectator, and remarking upon it that it was very witty 
that day; a conversation arose in which several of the party mis- 
construed the paper as though it contained a series of personal 
reflections. In reference to certain asterisks an old gentleman said, 
"Asterisks, do you call them; they are all of them stars — he might 
as well have put garters to them." In adverting to some chasm or 
dash, the same gentleman said, " You may easily know his meaning 
by his gaping; I suppose he designs his chasm, as you call it, for a 
hole to creep out at, but it will hardly serve his turn." " I cannot 
for my life (says I) imagine whom the Spectator means 1 No ! (says 
he), your humble servant, sir; upon which he flung himself back in 
his chair, after a contemptuous manner, and smiled upon an old 
lethargic gentleman on his left hand, who, I found, was his great 
admirer." Addison mentions the book called the Whole Duty of 
Man being converted into a libel, by writing the names of several 
persons in a village against every sin mentioned by the author. 

In the preface to the edition of Waller's poems, licensed in 1686 
in Waller's lifetime, purporting to be addressed by the printer to the 
reader, the printer, or Waller in his name, commences his preface 
thus : " When the author of these verses (written only to please 
himself and such particular persons to whom they were directed) 
returned from abroad some years since, he was troubled to find his 
name in print, but was somewhat satisfied to see his lines so ill 
rendered that he might justly disown them, and say to a mistaking 
printer, as one did to an ill reciter, Male dum recitas incipit esse 
tuus." 



II.] LITERATURE. 47 

Bishop Latimer, when a Wiltshire Parson, in a letter (see Words- 
worth's Ecclesiastical Biography) complains of a misconception enter- 
tained of one of his sermons by the then Bishop of London, thus writ- 
ing on the subject : " As for my preaching the sermon itself, I trust 
my Lord of London cannot rightfully blame it as I spake it ; or, else 
it is not my preaching, but his that falsely reporteth it, as the Poet 
Martial said to one that depraved his book, Male dum recitas incipit 



The point in Martial's epigram has been transferred to transla- 
tions by Racine : 

D'oii vient que, Ciceron, Platon, Yirgile, Homere, 
Et tous ces grands auteurs que l'univers revere, 
Traduits en vos ecrits nous paroissent si sots, 
Perrault? C'est qu'en portant a ces ^sprits sublimes 
Vos facons de parler, vos lassesses, vos rimes, 
Vous les fais tous paroitre des Perraults. 



XXXIV. 

AN IMPORTUNATE RECITER. 

Do you wish to know the cause why no one willingly 
meets you? that wherever you come, Ligurinus! you put 
people to flight, and create a solitude around you? The 
cause is, that you are too much of a poet (nimis poeta). 
This is a very perilous fault. A tiger exasperated by the 
capture of her whelps, a serpent scorched by the mid-day 
sun, a fierce scorpion are objects of less dread. For, I ask, 
who would willingly sustain the labours you are in the 
habit of imposing? You read your verses to the stander, 
you read them to the sitter, you read them to the runner, 
you read them to every one, whatever he is about. I fly 
to the warm baths, your voice sounds in my ear. I seek 
a cold bath, you interrupt my swimming. I hasten to 



48 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

supper, you detain me on the way; I have got to supper 
before you, you oblige me to change my seat. I am wearied 
with hearing you, and go to sleep, you rouse me as I re- 
cline on my couch. Do you desire to know the harm you 
do? Just, moral, innocent as you are known to be by all 
men, by all men you are feared. — Lib. in. Ep. xliv. 

Dry den, in the preface to his Fables, writes that " Chaucer fol- 
lowed nature everywhere, but was never so bold as to go beyond her; 
for there is a great difference of being poeta and nimis poeta, if we 
may believe Catullus, as much as betwixt a modest behaviour and 
affectation." George Lamb, in the notes to his translation of Catullus, 
observes that no such expression as nimis poeta occurs in Catullus, 
but it is found in Martial's epigram to Ligurinus. 

Sir John Denham, in the dedication of his poems to Charles II., 
expresses a dread of obtaining " the empty airy reputation of being 
nimis poeta." It may be thought that neither Dryden nor Denham 
apply the expression nimis poeta in the same sense as Martial, who 
signifies thereby a boring reciter of his own verses ; a social nuisance, 
of the extent of which in Home an idea may be formed from Cole- 
ridge's Ancient Mariner. 

Jeremy Taylor writes, with reference to the above epigram of 
Martial, " The very doing or speaking that which is good for nothing 
is evil. We see it even in the judgments of men. Martial tells us 
of a good man that had got a trick to invite his friends to walk, to 
bathe, to eat, to drink with him; in all which interviews he would 
be perpetually reading of his verses: one would have thought the 
thing itself were innocent, if the question had been asked concerning 
the thing alone; but they that felt the folly and tediousness of it 
were afraid to see him. * 

Vir Justus, probus, innocens timeris." 

And, again, in a discourse on the Good and Evil Tongue, Jeremy 
Taylor observes that "Plutarch advises that talking persons should 
give themselves to writing, just as the making an issue in the arm 
draws down the floods of the head : he supposes that if the talking 
humour were any way vented, the tongue might be brought to reason. 
But the experience of the world hath confuted this opinion; and 



II.] LITERATURE. 49 

when Zigurinus did write a poem, he talked of it to all companies 
he came in. However, it can be no hurt to try, for some have 
been cured of bleeding at the nose, by opening a vein in the arm." 

In the same discourse Jeremy Taylor writes ; " Such was the 
humour of the gentleman Martial speaks of: he was a good man, and 
full of sweetness and justice and nobleness, but he would read his 
nonsense verses to all companies, at the public games, at private 
feasts, in the baths, and on the couches, in public and in private, to 
sleeping and waking people, 

Yis, quantum facias mali, videre? 
Vir Justus, probus, innocens, timeris. 

Every one was afraid of him, and though he was good he was not 
to be endured. There are some persons so full of nothings, that, like 
the straight sea of Pontus, they perpetually empty themselves by 
their mouth, making every company or single person they fasten 
upon their Propontis." 



XXXV. 

POET AND MUSE. 



Five, or six, or seven little books (libelli) were enough, 
and more than enough; why does my Muse please still to 
continue her sportiveness? Let modesty have place, let 
there be an end of epigrams. Fame can now add nothing 
to my name; my book is worn out with reading in every 
place. When the sepulchre of Messala shall be laid low by 
Time, and when the lofty marble monument of Liein/us 
shall be no more than dust, I shall not cease to be read, 
and many a visitor to Rome shall take me back with 
him to his own country. I had finished my excuse for de- 
clining to write another book, when the ninth Muse (Thalia) 
made answer to me; that Muse whose locks and vest are 

MART. E 



50 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

smeared with ointment (denoting banquets). Ungrateful! 
can you relinquish your sweet trifles? Tell me, what, as 
a man of leisure, can you do better? Does it delight you 
to exchange the sock for the tragic cothurnus, or to thunder 
about wars in heroic verse, in order that a puffed-up school- 
master may take the lead of his scholars in spouting your 
poetry with a hoarse voice, and that the grown-up virgin and 
ingenuous youth may detest you? Let poems of that nature 
be written by poets who are grave and severe beyond mea- 
sure, and whose miserable plight is illumined by the midnight 
lamp ; but do you savour your little books with Roman salt. 
Let human nature recognise in your pages its own manners. 
Though you appear to be playing on a slender reed, that 
reed may sound further than the trumpets of many other 
poets. — Lib, vm. Ep. in. 

The reader may, perhaps, trace a connexion between the above 
epigram, which incidentally shows the popularity of Martial's writ- 
ings, and Cowley's poem, called the Complaint : 

And, lo! a Muse appear'd to his clos'd sight 

(The Muses oft in lands of vision play), 

A golden harp with silver strings she bore. 

■* % * * -X- 

She touch'd him with her harp, and rais'd him from the ground ; 

The shaken strings melodiously resound. 

"Art thou return'd at last," said she, 

"To this forgotten place and me? 

Thou prodigal!" 

* * * * • * 

Thus spake the Muse, and spake it with a smile 

That seem'd at once to pity and revile; 

And to her thus, raising his thoughtful head, 

The melancholy Cowley said. 

The marble tomb of Licinus, the Roman barber (Licini marmora), 

has been used by the commentators to illustrate an epigram very often 

quoted : 

Marmoreo tumulo Licinus jacet, at Cato parvo, 

Pompeius nullo; quis putet esse Deos? 



II.] LITERATURE. 51 

Which is thus translated by Archbishop Sancroft in his treatise on 
Modern Politics : 

Licinus does in marble sleep, 
A common urn does Cato keep, 
Pompey's ashes may catch cold, 
That there are Gods, let dotards hold. 
Persius and Martial illustrate each other on the subject of 
popular compositions, the verba togce as distinguished from robusti 
carminis off as ; the former pleasantly concluding, 

Mensamque relinque Mycenis 
Cum capite et pedibus, plebeiaque prandia noris. 



XXXVI. 

A WELCOMED AUTHOR 

Here he is whose books you read, and whom you inquire 
for. Here is Martial, renowned through the whole world for 
his acute epigrams. The honour which, studious reader, 
you have conferred upon him whilst alive and sentient, is 
what few poets enjoy even in their ashes. — Lib. i. Ep. i. 

The words "Ille quem requiris" (He, whom you seek), taken 
from the above epigram, (the first of the first book of Martial's 
epigrams,) is the motto of the first number of the Guardian. The 
last volume of the Spectator was concluded on Dec. 6, 1712. The 
Guardian made its appearance March 12, 1713, and was published 
daily till Oct. 1, 1713, concluding with number 175. After the 
cessation of the Spectator, the inquiry might, veiy probably, have 
been often made, whether the pens of Addison and Steele might 
not again be resumed for public instruction and entertainment; 
and, therefore, the motto " Ille quem requiris " was an appropriate 
expression of the expectations or wishes of the community. 



i: -1 



52 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 



XXXVII. 

READERS. 

Whither, Book ! whither, at your ease, are you wend- 
ing your path, clothed, as we behold you, in fine linen, not 
seen every day? Are you attempting to visit Parthenius? 
Go to him, and return without being unrolled, (with 
leaves uncut). He does not read books, except short ones; 
he has no time for the Muses, or he would give it to his 
own Muses. Is it possible that you consider yourself suffi- 
ciently happy if you fall into the hands of inferior readers? 
In that case, seek the neighbouring portico of Romulus; 
Pompey, in his portico, has not a more idle crowd, nor Europa, 
nor Jason with his picture of Argonauts, in their porticos. 
You may find in Romulus's portico two or three readers who 
may shake out the moths from your rolls; but even those 
readers can only be hoped for when there is a truce to the 
bettings and braggings {sponsio, fabidceque) about the rival 
charioteers, Scorpus and Incitatus. — Lib. xi. Ep. i. 

Dr Johnson adopts part of the above epigram as a motto for the 
146th number of the Rambler, with a poetical English version: 

'Tis possible that one or two 
These fooleries of mine may view; 
But then the bettings must be o'er, 
Nor Crab, nor Ghilders talked of more. 

Johnson commences his Paper by observing that "none of the 
projects or designs which exercise the mind of man are equally 
subject to obstructions and disappointments with the pursuit of 
fame." He gives a lively picture of an author who has just pub- 
lished a work composed with long toil. He places him, first, in an 
obscure corner of a Coffee-room, appearing to be poring over a file 
of antiquated journals, but catching the conversation of the whole 
company : parties enter and disperse ; he, however, hears nothing of 



II.] LITERATURE. 53 

his book; lie then ranges over the town with restless curiosity, and 
finds public attention engaged upon a multitude of subjects, but not 
upon his book; he resolves, at last, to violate his own modesty, and 
to recall talkers from their folly by an inquiry after himself. The 
answers are set forth, which are all to the effect of giving reasons 
why they have not read his book. The Paper concludes with obser- 
vations worthy of Johnson's pen, tending to show " how little renown 
can be admitted in the world." 

The excitement of the Roman people, occasioned by the spon- 
siones or wagers on the results of the public games, is mentioned by 
Tertullian, in his treatise De Spectaculis. The popularity of Scorpus 
and Incitatus appears from their gains as compared with those of 
Poets, which are the subject of several of Martial's epigrams. 

Becker, in an Excursus on the Books, in his Gallus, quotes the 
passage in the above epigram, cultus sindone non quotidiand, as illus- 
trating the mode of preserving the Roman rolls from damage by 
means of a handsome envelope, which Martial elsewhere calls pur- 
purea toga. 



XXXVIII. 
REMUNERATION OF AUTHORS. 

(I.) 
You, who were accustomed, in the business of a cobbler, 
to stretch out old skins with your teeth, and to bite the 
soles of shoes dirtied with mud, now enjoy the Prsenestine 
lands by the last will of your late patron ; in which you 
are not worthy to possess even a stall. Drunk with hot 
Falernian wine, you break the crystal vases which belonged 
to your patron, and of which, as of his cup-bearer, you have 
become master. But my foolish parents taught me letters. 
What had I to do with grammarians and rhetoricians? 
Break, Thalia ! my writing-reed, tear the leaves of my 
books, if a shoe can thus enrich a cobbler. — Lib. ix. Ep.hxxv. 



54 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

(II.) 

That I write entertaining poems when I am capable of 
serious compositions, you, kind reader, are the cause ; you, 
who read and sing my verses throughout Rome. Yet you 
know not how much your favour costs me. If I were to 
plead causes near the temple of Saturn in the Forum, and 
to sell my words (vendere verba) to such as tremble under 
criminal accusation, many a sailor would send me Spanish 
jars, and the fold of my toga would be soiled with coins of 
all denominations. But now my book is a guest, and a 
reveller, and my page is gratuitous. Ancient authors were 
not contented with barren praise, and Virgil acknowledges 
presents from Msecenas. You say, that I have written with 
elegance, and that such praise is enough for me ; thus I am 
to be paid with praises for ever. Do you pretend not to 
understand my hints? I think you will really make me a 
lawyer. — Lib. v. Ep. xvi, 

Fielding has taken a motto for the 42nd number of the Covent 
Garden Journal, from the first of the above epigrams, 

Me litterulas stulti docuere parentes, 
which he translates, 

My father was a fool 
When he sent me to school. 

In this Paper Fielding treats of the maxim that "Scholars 
know nothing of the world :" he takes an exaggerated view, but in a 
pleasant vein of irony, of a person whose " notions of the world are 
drawn from letters," and carries him to levees, to hunting-matches, 
and horse-races, and to a " drum or rout." For instance, " let us 
suppose a man possessed of this jaundice of literature conveyed into 
the levees of the great. What notion will he be likely to entertain 
of the several persons who compose that illustrious assembly, from 
their behaviour 1 How will he be puzzled when he is told that he 
hath before his eyes a number of freemen ? How much more will he 
be amazed when he hears that all the servility he there beholds arises 
only from an eager desire to be permitted to serve the country 1 In 



II.] LITERATURE. 55 

like manner the jaundiced man will be amazed when he is told that 
the whole business of the lives of the ladies present at a drum or rout 
is only to toss about from one to the other certain pieces of painted 
paper." Fielding supposes a scholar, when he first comes to town 
from the University, to be like a man " translated into one of the 
planets ; the world in the town and that in the moon being equally 
strange to him, and equally unintelligible." He thus paraphrases 
Horace's adage, 

Vitse summa brevis 
Spem nos vetat inchoare Ion gam. 

" The shortness of life affords no time for a tedious education." 
The first two lines of the second of the above epigrams, 
Seria cum possim, quod delectantia malim 
Scribere, tu causa es, lector, 

is the motto of the 140th number of the World, which treats of the 
festivities (delectantia) of Christmas, being published on the day after 
Christmas-day. The present of Spanish jars (Hispanas metretas) may 
possibly have suggested Pope's well-known line, 

Sir ! Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil. 

Becker, in the Appendix to his Gallus, when treating of the 
relation between bookseller and author in ancient Rome, notices par- 
ticularly the passage, in the last of the above epigrams, about the 
gratuitous page (gratis pagina nostra), intimating that Martial had 
probably sold his book to the bookseller, and thus, in one sense, 
ceased to derive a profit from the sale. He observes that "it is 
inconceivable how Martial, who, according to his own account, was 
always in want of money, should have endured quietly to look on, 
while Tryphon, or Pollius, or Secundus, made a considerable profit of 
his poems ; for we have reason to believe that his books were very 
successful ; " and he quotes a distich from Martial on the sale of 
Lucan's Pharsalia, to shew that the sale of books was profitable : 

Sunt quidam, qui me dicunt non esse poetam, 
Sed qui me vendit bibliopola putat. 

In inquiries concerning the profits of Roman authors it is neces- 
sary to take into consideration the absence, in ancient Rome, of 
a law of copyright : without such a law the booksellers might make 



56 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

a fortune out of the sale of the Pharsalia without liability of ac- 
counting to Polla, whom Martial (in his epigram on Lucan's birth- 
day) has immortalized as Lucan's widow. Martial, however, does 
not complain, like Dryden and many of our poets, of the cormorants 
who sit on the tree of knowledge. 






XXXIX. 

AUTHOR IN WANT OF A CLOAK. 

Rufus ! a man, the other day, inspected me as closely 
as though he had been about to buy me for a slave, or 
choose me for a gladiator ; at last he broke silence, and said, 
Are you that Martial whose wit is familiar to every ear but 
that of a Dutchman (aurem Batavam) ? I smiled, and 
slightly nodded assent. Upon which he said, "Why then 
have you so bad a cloak" (lacerna). I answered, " Because 
I am a bad poet/' That this may not happen again, Rufus ! 
to a Poet, send me a good cloak. — Lib. vi. Ep. lxxxii. 

Pope, in a letter to H. Cromwell, Esq., thus avails himself of 
expressions in this and in the epigram of this chapter on an Attic 
Patron : " I agree with you in your censure of the use of the sea- 
terms in Mr Dryden' s Virgil, not only because Helenus was no great 
prophet in those matters, but because no words of art or cant words 
suit with the majesty and dignity of style which epic poetry requires. 
The tarpaulin phrase can please none but such qui aurem habent 
Batavam; they must not expect auribus Atticis probari. I think I 
have brought in two phrases of Martial here very dexterously." The 
tarpaulin phrases alluded to are such as are noticed by Walter Scott, 
in his Life of Dryden, as, 

Tack to the larboard, and stand off to sea, 

Veer starboard sea and land. 



II.] LITERATURE. §7 

XL. 

ADVANTAGES OF A PATRON. 

0, little book, to whom do you desire to be dedicated ? 
Hasten to procure to yourself a Patron, lest quickly you 
be hurried into a dark kitchen, there to cover little fishes 
with your wetted papyrus, or to be made a hood {cucullus) 
for holding pepper and frankincense. You fly to the sinus 
(principal fold of the toga) of Faustinus ? You are wise. Now 
you may walk abroad, anointed with cedar-oil, and polished 
at both ends (gemino honore frontis) : you may luxuriate in 
painted umbilicis (cylinder with painted knobs round which 
the volumen was rolled); delicate purple may clothe you, 
and you may wear a proud title (Index) inscribed on cloth of 
a deep red colour. With such a patron and champion, you 
may defy the critic Probus. — Lib. in. Ep. ir. 

Becker, in the Appendix to his Gallus, when treating of Roman 
Books, adverts to the above epigram, as giving a more comprehensive 
description of the ornaments of books than is to be found in the other 
ancient writers; the gemince /routes, umbilicus, and index, are terms of 
bookbinders that are explained, principally from Martial, by Becker, 
and by Dr Smith in his Dictionary of Antiquities. "With regard to 
the term cucullus (a hood or cowl), as applied to paper in the above 
epigram, it is referred to by the writer of an article on a MS. of Aratus, 
in the 26th volume of the Archceologia of the Antiquarian Society, 
as showing, among other proofs, that there were several papers in 
common use among the Romans besides that made of papyrus : he 
thinks that paper manufactured of papyrus could not from its brittle 
nature conveniently have been twisted into the shape of a hood or 
wrapper for the purpose of holding pepper and frankincense. 

Coryat, in his pedantic style, which led Ben Jonson to apply to 
him the term Logo-Dwdalus, concludes what is a highly interesting 
letter from India, thus : " Yet one postscript more by way of corol- 
lary, being the fourth and last, I will add, as the final umbilick to 
this tedious English Indian epistle." 






58 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 



XLL 
A WILLING PATRON. 

Little Book ! if you are well acquainted with Sabinus, 
the honour of the mountainous Umbria, you will present him 
with this collection of epigrams, whether or not he be, at the 
time, busy. Though a thousand cares assail and oppress him, 
yet he will find leisure for my verses : for he loves me, and 
next to the noble books of Turnus he values mine. what 
a name is in store for me ! what glory, and how many 
lovers shall I have ! And you, my little Book ! will be talked 
of in the Forum, and at all banquets, temples, streets, por- 
ticos, taverns. You will be sent to one, but will be read 
by all.— Lib. vn. Ep. xcvi. 

In Ben Jonson's address to his Muse, in his Underwoods, the 
above epigram of Martial is closely copied, Sir Kenelm Digby being 
substituted for Sabinus. Ben Jonson thus concludes : 

Say he be 
Busy, or frown at first, when he sees thee 
He will clear up his forehead; think thou bring'st 
Good omen to him in the note thou sing'st. 
For he doth love my verses, and will look 
Upon them next to Spenser's noble book, 
And praise them too. O what a fame 'twill be, 
What reputation to my lines and me, 
When he shall read them at the Treasurer's board, 
The knowing Weston, and that learned lord 
Allows them! Then, what copies shall be had, 
What transcripts begg'd ! how cried up, and how glad 
Wilt thou be, Muse, when this shall them befall! 
Being sent to one, they will be read of all. 



II.] LITERATURE. 59 



XLII. 

AN ATTIC PATRON. 

If you desire to be approved of by Attic ears (auribus 
Atticis probari), I admonish and exhort you, little Book! 
to ingratiate yourself with the learned Apollinaris ; than 
whom there is no one more erudite nor of more exquisite 
taste, nor who, at the same time, is more candid and 
benevolent. If he cherishes you in his breast, and repeats 
you with his mouth, you will have no cause to fear the 
snortings (rhonclios) of malignity, nor will you furnish broiling 
tunics (tunicas molestas) for herrings. If he condemn you, 
you may hasten immediately to the stalls of the sellers of 
salt and salted provisions, to be ploughed on the back 
(unwritten side) by school-boys {otherwise, saltsellers' boys). 
— Lib. iv. Ep. lxxxvii. 

Martial's phrase of tunica molesta, or the pitchy shirt in which 
criminals were burnt, for the paper in which fish, particularly scombri 
(herrings or mackerel), were enveloped, is used by him, probably, on 
account of such fish being dressed like our red-mullets, or Maintenon 
cutlets. With regard to the salarii, and the ploughboys of paper, 
much is written by the commentators. The passage inversa arande 
charta is cited by antiquarians to shew that rolled volumes were 
usually written on one side only. The expression, auribus Atticis 
probari, has been above adverted to in the epigram on " An Author 
in want of a Cloak," as used by Pope. „ 

In allusion, probably, to the above epigram, and to another by 
Martial, beginning, 

Ne toga condylis, et psenula desit olivis, 
Milton writes against the knight Claudius Salmasius, the famous 
apologist of Charles I. : 

Gaudete scombri, et quicquid est piscium salo, 

Qui frigida hyeme incolitis algentes freta ! 

Vestrum misertus ille Salmasius, Eques 

Bonus, amicire nuditatem cogitat: 



60 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Chartseque largus apparat papyrinos 
Vobis cucullos prseferentes Claudii 
Insignia, nomenque, et decus Salmasii. 
Gestetis ut per omne cetarium forum 
Equitis client es, scriniis mungentium 
Cubito virorum, et capsulis, gratissimos. 

Rejoice, ye Herrings! and all fishes who shiver in the seas in the 
coldness of winter; for Salinasius, the good knight, has pity upon 
you, and has an intention of clothing your nakedness. He is pre- 
paring in a bountiful spirit hoods of papyrus for you all, which shall 
bear on the face of them the coat of arms, and the name and fame of 
Claudius Salmasius. As the knights' clients you shall wear hoods 
made out of the leaves of his (unsaleable) book, in every fish-market ; 
a species of envelope which cannot fail of being very acceptable at the 
stalls and shelves of the fishmongers. 

Montaigne expresses himself in a similar vein concerning his own 
writings. After quoting Martial, he writes : " I shall, peradventure, 
keep a pound of butter in the market from melting in the sun ; yet, 
though nobody should read me, have I lost my time in entertaining 
myself so many idle hours in pleasing and useful thoughts?" 



XLIII. 

PLAGIARIES. 



(i.) 
Fidentinus! There is* one page of your own in the 
middle of the book the whole of which you profess to have 
written; but that page bears an indisputable indication of 
its authorship, convicting you, in the rest, of manifest theft. 
Thus the materials of a rough Gallic cloak degrade a violet 
garb of the city by their admixture; thus does Aretine 
pottery spoil a crystal vase ; thus does a black crow, hap- 
pening to wander on the banks of the Cayster, excite laughter 
when seen among the white swans ; thus when a sacred grove 



i 



II.] LITERATURE. 61 

is alive with the varied note of the Attic bird, does the voice 
of a wicked magpie jar with its plaintive strains. I need no 
one to point ont what part of your book is mine, no one to 
vindicate me; your own page confronts you, and proclaims 
you a thief.— Lib. i. Ep. liv. 

(ii.) 
I was writing an epic poem, but when you announced 
that you were beginning to write one, I desisted, in order to 
avoid rivalry. My Thalia thereupon transferred itself to the 
tragic cothurni, you immediately fitted to yourself the long 
syrma (train) ; I struck the Muse's lyre, you forthwith seized 
the plectrum (quill to play on the strings of the lyre) with 
a new-born ambition. I dared to write satires, you strove 
to be Lucilius. I take sport in light elegies, you fancy the 
same kind of sport. What lower style of poetry can I 
choose? I begin to fashion epigrams, here also you grudge 
me my fame. Choose what you do not like ; it is a shame 
to like every thing. Thus if there be any species of com- 
position you do not like to undertake, leave that for me. — 
Lib. xn. Ep. xcvi. 

Ben Jonson appears to have had the first of the above epigrams 
in his view in his own epigram on Poet- Ape, which concludes : 

Fool ! as if half eyes will not know a fleece 

From locks of wool, or shreds from the whole piece. 

Still more closely has Ben Jonson imitated the second of the 
above epigrams, but in a less lively strain than in the original : 

I cannot for the stage a drama lay 

Tragic or comic; but thou writ'st a play. 

I leave thee there, and, giving way, intend 

An epic poem; thou hast the same end. 

I modestly quit that, and think to write 

Next morn an ode : thou mak'st a song ere night. 

I pass to elegies : thou meet'st me there, 

To satires; and thou dost pursue me. Where, 



62 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Where shall I 'scape thee? in an epigram? 
O, thou cry'st out, that is my proper game. 

The expression, the Attic bird, or Attic warbler (Atihide), has been 
used by several modern poets, though it may be difficult to say posi- 
tively that they borrowed it from Martial. Thus Dr Newton, in his 
Notes on Milton's Paradise Regained, refers to the first of the above 
epigrams in illustration of the passage on the " olive grove of Aca- 
deme :" 

Where the Attic bird 

Trills her thick warbled notes. 

Martial {Lib. x.) gives a plagiary one leg of the runner Lada, 
and another of wood. A libeller in Martial's name is noticed by 
Jeremy Taylor for his conscience, prodente clamet conscientid, scripsi. 



XLIV. 

BOOKSELLERS. 



As often as you meet me, Lupercus, you immediately 
say, " May I send my slave-boy that you may give him your 
Book of Epigrams, which I will return as soon as I have 
read it." I answer, There is no occasion to put your boy 
to so much trouble. It is a long distance to come to my part 
of the city, and I live up three pair of stairs, and those high 
ones. You can get what you want much nearer. You often 
walk into Argiletum (Paternoster Row) : you will find there 
a shop opposite Caesar's Forum ; its door-posts, from top to 
bottom, are covered with inscriptions, from which you may 
soon learn the names of all the Poets whose works are for 
sale. Seek for me out of these : you need not ask Atrectus 
(for this is the name of the owner of the shop) if he can find 
me. He will hand my book down from the first or second 
nest (nido), bound with purple, and polished with pumice- 
stone, for the price of five denarii. "You are not worth 
so much," quoth Lupercus. "You speak wisely," quoth I. — 
Lib. i. Ep. cxviii. 



II.] LITERATURE. 63 

The last line of the epigram Tanti non es, ais ? sapis, Lwperce, forms 
the motto of the 445th number of the Spectator by Addison, with a 
version : 

You say, Lupercus, what I write 

I'n't worth so much: you're in the right. 

This use of Martial's epigram may appear ingenious ; the Paper 
containing a discussion on the point whether the Spectator ought to 
be discontinued in consequence of the new stamp to be imposed on 
periodicals on the next day, which would have the effect of raising 
its price from a penny to twopence. Swift mentions as the effect of 
the stamp, which began on Aug. 1st, 1712, "The Observator is fallen, 
the Medleys are jumbled together with the Flying-Post, the Examiner 
is deadly sick. The Spectator keeps up, and doubles in price." The 
daily circulation of the Spectator has been estimated at fourteen 
thousand ; like the Tatler and Guardian it was printed on a single 
half-sheet, and upon vile paper. 

The above epigram is quoted by Roman antiquarians in treating 
on the subjects of booksellers' shops, and the price of books, as in the 
Excursus of Becker's Gallus on the Booksellers, in which there are 
nine extracts from Martial, besides other references to him. Becker 
notices that the book of Martial, which cost five denarii, contained a 
hundred and nineteen epigrams ; he makes his Gallus say, as suggested 
by the above epigram, " I do not much desire to be sold in the Argi- 
letan shops for five denarii, and find my name hung up on the doors, 
and not always in the best company." 



XLV. 

AUTHOR'S PORTRAIT. 

How small a skin here comprises the immense Maro ! 
the first tablet bears his portrait. — Lib. xiv. Ep. clxxxvi. 

Upon this authority, and one in Seneca, Becker and Dr Smith 
state it to have been the practice, among the Romans, to prefix por- 
traits of authors to books. The engraved portrait of Shakspere in the 
first edition of his plays, which is vouched by Ben Jonson, is a notable 



64 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

example of the early revival of this practice in England. Sir 
Matthew Hale's portrait prefixed to his works represents his thumb, 
according to his practice, placed in his girdle; that of Paley has a 
fishing-rod. Ben Jonson speaks of his own picture as exhibiting 

A mountain belly, and a rocky face. 



XLVI. 

SQUARE MSS. 

Within small skins is compressed the enormous work 
of Livy, which, if it had been written on rolls, my bookcase 
(receptacle for rolls) could scarcely have contained. — Lib, xiv. 
Ep. cxc. 

A writer on a MS. of Aratus, in the twenty-sixth volume of the 
Archceologia of the Antiquarian Society, observes that Shaurzius, in 
his work Be Ornamentis Librorum, is of opinion that Martial, in his 
epigrams, headed respectively, u Ovid," " Homer," " Cicero," and others 
in membranes, is speaking of square manuscripts of those authors, and 
not of rolls. The author of the Paper thinks it probable that square 
manuscripts, which, before Martial lived, had been rarely used, except 
for books of account and registers, began, in his time, to come much 
into vogue. He observes that besides rolled manuscripts being written 
only on one side, their shape, and the looseness with which they were 
rolled, necessarily caused them to occupy much more space, in pro- 
portion to the matter contained in them, than was the case with 
square manuscripts, the leaves of which, besides being written on both 
sides, were compressed into the smallest compass by the bookbinder. 

The concluding line of the epigram, 

Quern mea vix totum bibliotheca capit, 
may appear to have suggested the conclusion of one of the mock com- 
mendatory epigrams prefixed to Coryat's Crudities, in allusion to his 
having travelled to Venice and back with one pair of shoes, which is 
compared to Drake's voyage round the world in one ship. Drake, 
however, published only one volume ; whereas, says the Poet, in 
Martial's words, a bookcase would scarcely hold Coryat's Travels. 



II.] LITERATURE. 65 

Ad Yenetos venit corio Coryatus ab uno 
Yectus, et, ut vectus, pene revectus erat. 

Nave una Dracus sic totum circuit orbem, 
At rediens retulit te, Coryate, minus. 

Illius undivagos tenet unica charta labores, 
Tota tuos sed vix bibliotheca capit. 

Jeremy Taylor, in animadverting on the " infinite number of cere- 
monies in the Romish Church," writes, "They are described in a great 
book in folio, quern meet, non totum hibliotheca capit, my purse will 
not reach to buy it." 



XLVII. 
EXPLICIT. COKNTTA. 



You send back my book unfolded (explicitum) to its 
horns (cornud), and as if you had read it through. I can 
believe in your having read the whole, and am glad of it. 
Just in the same way, I have read through five of your 
books.— Lib. xi. Ep. cvm. 

The word explicit, usually placed at the end of a work in ancient 
Latin MSS., is not classical Latin, but is supposed to be an abridg- 
ment of the word explicitum, for the use of which antiquarians refer 
to the first line of the above epigram of Martial, and to a line 
in another of his epigrams, 

Yersibus explicitum est omne duobus opus. 
Many of the mock eulogies prefixed to Coryat's Crudities conclude 
with an explicit. Thus, one remarkable for being written by the 
great architect, Inigo Jones, in allusion to the benefit of Clergy, con- 
cludes thus : 

This book who scorns to buy, or on it look, 
May he at Sessions crave, and want his book ! 

Explicit Inigo Jones. 
In the Medicean MS. of Yirgil, which was written at a date 
that none have placed later than the fourth century, there is inscribed 
at the end of the Bucolics, 

MART. F 



66 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

P. Vergili Maronis 

Bucolicon. Liber explicit. 

Incipit Georgicon, Lib. i. Feliciter. 

Becker, in his Excursus on the Books, adverts to the term cornua, 
which, he notices, is used by Martial only in this place. Martial 
seems, in the epigram, to hint at a jactitation of reading through 
a rolled volume, by returning it completely unrolled to its umbilicus, 
of which the cornua were the knobs or handles. 



XLVIII. 
BOOK-SPONGE. 



Whilst my book is new, and its edges are not yet cut 
even, whilst my page is still moist, and fears to be touched, 
go, boy, and carry it to my friend Faustinus, who is deserving 
of the first sight of my trifles. Run, but properly furnished ; 
let an African sponge accompany the book; it is a fitting 
appendage to my gifts. Many effacings, Faustinus, cannot 
amend my jests, one effacing can. — Lib. iv. Ep. x. 

Becker quotes the last two lines of this epigram as illustrating 
the practice of erasing or washing out the whole of a page, and 
writing again on the same paper, which was called palimpsestus. It is 
supposed that many literary treasures have been effaced in order that 
the paper might be converted into a palimpsest. The following pas- 
sages, in which Becker describes the library of Gallus, will shew 
a modern use of Martial's notices of Roman books, and, at the same 
time, explain several of the above epigrams : 

" There, in presses of cedar- wood, placed round the walls, lay the 
rolls, partly of parchment and partly of the finest Egyptian papyrus, 
each supplied with a label, on which was seen in bright red letters 
the name of the author, and title of the book." 

" Other literary slaves were engaged in giving the rolls the most 
agreeable exterior, in glueing the several strips of papyrus together, in 



II.] LITERATURE. 67 

smoothing with pumice-stone and blackening the edges, drawing red 
lines which divided the different columns, and writing the title in the 
same colour ; fastening ivory tops on the sticks round which the rolls 
were wrapped, and dyeing bright red or yellow the parchment which 
was to serve as a wrapper." 



XLIX. 

WRITING-TABLETS. 



(I.) 
It requires good eyes to peruse what is written with a 
style upon dark-coloured waxen tablets ; but letters written 
upon white ivory are read with the greatest facility. — 
Lib. xiy. Ep. x. 

(ii.) 

Though these tablets are called skins (memhrana), fancy 
them wax ; you may rub out what is previously written upon 
them, and write again, as often as you please. — Lib. xiv. 
Ep. vii. 

These epigrams, and several others on the subject of twiting- 
tablets, were composed for the purpose of accompanying Saturnalian 
presents. The author of a paper in the 26th volume of the Archoz- 
ologia of ilie Antiquarian Society, on the subject of a MS. of Aratus, 
has discussed the subject of the Roman writing- tablets (pugillares). 
In the course of his remarks he quotes the above epigrams, and 
notices various other epigrams of Martial on pugillares of different 
sorts. He considers that the second of the above epigrams relates to 
tablets like our books of ass's- skin. 



P2 



68 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

L. 

SHORT-HAND. 

Though words are fluent, the hand outstrips them in 
speed; the tongue has not finished its work, the hand's 
work is done. — Lib. xiv. Ep. ccvm. 

The distich which expresses the above epigram is used by Mel- 
moth to illustrate a passage in Pliny's Letters, wherein it is men- 
tioned that the elder Pliny was constantly attended in his chariot 
by a short-hand writer (notarizes), who, in winter, wore a particular 
sort of warm gloves, in order that the sharpness of the weather might 
not occasion any interruption of his occupation. Melmoth gives the 
following version of Martial's epigram : 

Swift tho' the words, the pen still swifter sped, 
The hand has finish'd, ere the tongue has said. 



LI. 

MARTIAL. 



I confess, Callistratus, that I am and always was poor, 
though not an obscure nor unfavourably known knight 
{Nee male notus eques). I am frequently read throughout 
the whole world, and people point at me, saying, "That is 
He." The boon which ashes give, and that only to a few, 
has been conferred upon me whilst alive. Your roofs, how- 
ever, rest on a hundred columns, and your wealth is such 
a libertine as scarcely to be confined by any chest. An 
extensive farm at Syene on the Nile is subservient to you, 
and Gallic Parma shears your innumerable flocks. Look on 
the picture of what I am, and on that of what you are; 
only bear this in mind, that you cannot become what I am, 
whilst any one of the populace may become like you. — 
Lib. v. Ep. xiii. 



II.] LITERATURE. 69 

The motto of the arms belonging to the Viscounts Southwell 
is taken from the above epigram, viz. Nee male notus eques. Mar- 
tial's concluding sentiment has been expressed on several remarkable 
occasions, and in some well-known poems, though it may appear too 
fanciful to connect such instances with his epigram. Charles V. told 
his Court that he could make as many courtiers as he pleased, but 
that he could not make a Titian ; and Burns, 

A Prince can make a belted Knight, 

A Marquis, Duke, and a' that, 
But an honest man's aboon his might, 
Guid faith he munna fa' that. 



LIL 

QUINTILIAN. 



Quintilian, of the guides of unstable youth the chief; 
the glory of the Roman toga! Pardon me, that poor as I 
am, and not of an age past enjoyment, I hasten to live. 
No one hastens enough to live. Let that man put off the 
time for living, whose aim is to increase his hereditary 
wealth, and who crowds his atria with images in excessive 
number. My delight is my fireside, and a house that is 
not spoiled with a little smoke, and a running stream, and 
natural turf. May I have a well-fed slave, a wife not too 
learned, nights with sleep, days without a lawsuit. — Lib. n. 
Ep. xc. 

This epigram is translated, or rather paraphrased, by Cowley : 

Wonder not, Sir, (you who instruct the town 
In the true wisdom of the sacred gown,) 
That I make haste to live, and cannot hold 
Patiently out till I grow rich and old. 
Life for delays and doubts no time does give, 
None ever yet made haste enough to live. 



70 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [cH. 

Let him defer it whose prepost'rous care 

Omits himself, and reaches to his heir, 

Who does his father's bounded stores despise, 

And whom his own too never can suffice. 

My humble thoughts no glittering roofs require, 

Or rooms that shine with ought but constant fire. 

I will content the avarice of my sight 

With the fair gildings of reflected light. 

Pleasures abroad the sport of nature yields, 

Her living fountains, and her smiling fields ; 

And, then, at home, what pleasure is't to see, 

A little cleanly cheerful family; 

Which if a chaste wife crown, no less in her 

Than fortune, I the golden mean prefer; 

Too noble, nor too wise, she should not be ; 

No, nor too rich, too fair, too fond of me; 

Thus let my life slide silently away 

With sleep all night, and quiet all the day. 

Two lines of the above epigram are used for the motto of the 
71st number of the Rambler, with this version : 

True, Sir, to live I haste, your pardon give, 
For, tell me, who makes haste enough to live? 

In the course of this Paper Dr Johnson relates, that when Baxter 
had lost a thousand pounds, which he had laid up for the erection of 
a school, he used frequently to instance the misfortune as an excite- 
ment to be charitable while God gives us the power of bestowing ; 
and he considered himself as culpable in some degree in having left a 
good action in the hands of chance, and suffered his benevolence to be 
defeated for want of quickness and diligence. 

Dr Johnson further mentions, in reference to Martial's sentiment, 
" that it was lamented by Hearne, the antiquary, that a general for- 
getfulness of the fragility of life had remarkably infected the students 
of monuments and records. As their employment consists first in 
collecting, and, afterwards, in arranging or abstracting what libraries 
afford them, they ought to amass no more than they can digest : 
but when they have undertaken a work, they go on searching and 
transcribing, call for new supplies when they are already overbur- 
thened, and, at last, leave their work unfinished. 'It is,' says he, 



II.] LITERATURE. 71 

' the part of a good antiquary, as of a good man, to have mortality 
always before him.' " 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Sermon on Death-bed Repentance, quotes four 
lines from the above epigram of Martial, viz. 

Yivere quod propero pauper, nee inutilis annis, 

Da veniam : properat vivere nemo satis. 
Differat hoc, patrios optat qui vincere census, 
Atriaque immodicis arctat imaginibus. 
After enumerating, in this sermon, the various duties which a 
man cannot perform if he has not hastened to perform them at the 
proper time, Jeremy Taylor allows that a sinner, on his death-bed, 
"can pray, and groan, and call to God, and resolve to live well when 
he is dying." 

With regard to Images in the Atria, Becker introduces Gallus's 
servants busy in his atrium about decking with fresh garlands the 
busts and shields which supplied the place of the imagines, or waxen 
masks of departed ancestors ; he calls the placing of images of an- 
cestors in the atrium a beautiful custom : Juvenal writes, 
Tota licet veteres exornent undique cerce 
Atria, nobilitas sola est, atque unica virtus. 



LIIL 

JUVENAL, 



You strive to involve me in a quarrel with my friend 
Juvenal; what wilt not thou, perfidious tongue, dare to 
utter? By your mischievous fictions, Orestes would have 
hated Pylades, and the love of Pirithous would have been 
withdrawn from Theseus. You would have disunited the 
Sicilian brothers, and the Atridse (Agamemnon and Menelaus) 
of greater fame, and the sons of Leda (Castor and Pollux). 
I imprecate on yourself the punishment of being for ever 
addicted to vile practices, in retribution for such darings 
{pro talibus ansis). — Lib. vn. Ep. xxiii. 



72 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Edwards, in his Medallic History, gives the representations of 
two medals of the reign of Charles II., which he designates as 
"honorary medals struck to be presented to naval officers who had 
distinguished themselves in an engagement." He describes the 
medals thus: "The King's head and titles. Reverse, a fleet en- 
gaged, the King on shore giving command. Pro talibus amis. ' For 
such attempts.' " In the correspondence of Pepys, there is a letter 
from a Mr Slingsby, offering Pepys to sell him some medals by 
Monsieur Roetter, according to a list. In the list, ~No. 8, is "The 
King for the Fyre ships, with Pro talibus ausis, £1. 19s.;" No. 15 is 
a similar medal, price £1. 8s. 

The Reverses in the two medals of which copies are given by 
Edwards slightly differ, but in each there is a ship on fire, which 
does not appear to have attracted Edwards's notice, and which is, 
most probably, the daring exploit alluded to in the mottoes. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Sermon on Slander, makes a quotation from 
the above epigram of Martial, observing that "the dearest friendships 
in the world cannot be secure, where such whisperers are attended 
to ;" and, with reference to the line, " Quid non audebis, perfida 
lingua, loqui ? " he says that false accusation is a " direct murder of 
the tongue." 



LIV. 
CATULLUS' S SPARROW. 

Silius, the glory of the Castalian sisters, who in lofty 
style expressest the perjuries of barbaric rage, and the 
perfidy of the proud Hannibal, and who compellest the fickle 
Carthaginians to yield to the two great Africani, lay aside, 
for a while, the severity of your studies, and give yourself 
leisure suited to my Muse. Now Decembers holidays are 
noisy with the rotatory rattling of dice in their chanceful 
boxes. Do not, at this season, read with a stern look, but 
with benignity, my little poems on jocular themes. Probably 



II.] LITERATURE. 73 

in this same manner, the weaker Catullus may have sent 
his Sparrow to the great Virgil. — Lib. iv. Ep. xiv. 

The above epigram has been cited to show that the writings of 
Catullus were contemporary with those of Virgil; whereas most 
writers assert that Catullus died when Virgil was yet a youth, and 
was pursuing his studies at Cremona. The question is considered by 
Lamb in the Preface to his translation of Catullus. It would seem 
that Martial had been less attentive to chronology than anxious to 
make up the terms of a proportion as Silius to Virgil, so himself to 
Catullus; the former comparison being the most acceptable compli- 
ment that could be paid to Silius, and the latter expressing the sum- 
mit of his own aspirations. 

George Lamb thus renders the above epigram of Martial: 

Oh, thou, whose strains in loftiest style 
(Oh, Silius, glory of the Nine !) 

Tell barbarous warfare's varied wile, 
Hannibal's ever new design; 

And paint the Scipios in the field, 

Where Carthage false was forc'd to yield. 

Awhile your grandeur put away, 
December now, with rattling dice 

Cast from the doubtful box, is gay; 
And Popa plies his false device; 

'Tis now an easy festive time 

That well befits my careless rhyme. 

Then smooth your frowns; with placid brow 
Read, pr'ythee, these my trifling lays, 

My lays where wanton jests o'erflow; 
For thus, perchance, his sparrow's praise, 

Catullus, whom sweet strains attend, 

To mighty Maro dar'd to send. 

Antiquarians have adverted to this epigram in treating of the 
festival of the Saturnalia and of the social games of the Romans. The 
Delphi n editors term perobscurum the passage, Et ludit rota nequiore 
talo. Becker renders nequiore talo, loaded dice. George Lamb's 
Popa is the keeper of a popina. 



74 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. • [CH. 



LV. 

VIRGIL'S TOMB. 

(I.) 
Silius (Italicus) celebrates funeral obsequies at Maro's 
tomb, and is the possessor of Cicero's domain (the Academy). 
Surely neither Maro nor Cicero would have preferred any 
individual now alive to be the heir and guardian of his 
sepulchre and lares. — Lib. xi. Ep. xlix. 

(ii.) 

A solitary poor man was, for a long time, the only 
resident near the deserted ashes of Maro, who might pay 
honour to his sacred name. Silius came to the rescue of 
Maro's estate, which now, as formerly, is subject to the 
dominion of a Poet. — Lib. xi. Ep. li. 

The above epigrams have been pressed into the controversy con- 
cerning the site of Yirgil's tomb. Cluverius, who is followed by 
Addison, chiefly on the authority of a passage in Statius of doubtful 
interpretation, argues that Yirgil's tomb was at the foot of Vesuvius. 
With reference to the above epigrams Eustace writes, "As for the 
two epigrams of Martial quoted by Cluverius, they only seem to in- 
sinuate that Silius Italicus was proprietor both of the tomb of Virgil 
and of the villa of Cicero, a circumstance rather favourable than 
contrary to the common opinion concerning the site of Virgil's tomb : 
for we know that Cicero's villa lay on the same side of Naples as 
Posilipo, and as Virgil's tomb belonged to the same master as the 
villa, it may be supposed that they were not very far distant from 
each other." 

Concerning the latter of the above epigrams, Eustace writes, in 
his Classical Tour, " The sepulchre of Virgil, it might be imagined, 
would have long remained an object of interest and veneration, espe- 
cially as his works had excited universal admiration even in his 
lifetime, and were very soon after his death put into the hands of 
children, and, according to Quintilian, made, with Homer, part of 



II.] • LITERATURE. 75 

the rudiments of early education at Rome. Yet Martial declares 
that the tomb had been neglected in his time, and that Silius Italicus 
alone restored its long-forgotten honours : 

To honour Maro's dust, and sacred shade, 
One swain remained, deserted, poor, alone. 

Till Silius came his pious toils to aid, 

In homage to a name scarce greater than his own. 

This negligence in an age of so much refinement cannot but appear 
astonishing, even though we are informed that the same age had 
been terrified by the cruelties of four successive tyrants, and dis- 
tracted by two most destructive wars raging in the very heart of 
Italy." These epigrams illustrate a letter of Pliny, in which he 
relates the suicide of Silius, and particulars of his life. 

The circumstances of the poet Sannazarius being buried near 
Yirgil's tomb, and Spenser near that of Chaucer, are noticed in their 
epitaphs, which may possibly have been suggested by Martial's lines 
on the poet Silius in connexion with Virgil's tomb; the epitaph on 
Sannazarius {Sincerus) being : 

Da sacro cineri flores, hie ille Maronis 
Sincerus, musa proximus, et tumulo. 

And that on Spenser, which is apparently borrowed from the pre- 
ceding : 

Hie, prope Chaucerum, situs est Spenserius, illi 
Proximus ingenio, proximus et tumulo. 



LVI. 

SILIUS ITALICUS. 



Whosoever will read the imperishable volumes of the 
immortal Silius, and his verses worthy of the Roman toga, 
must surely suppose that he had given his whole mind 
to the Pierian recesses, to the chaplets which the Aonian 
Muses wear after the fashion of Bacchus. Nevertheless, 



76 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. ■ [CH. 

he did not attain to the sacred poesy of the tragic Virgil, 
until he had maturely studied the whole works of Cicero. 
Him the Centumviri at their tribunal still admire, and many 
a client speaks of him with a grateful tongue. After he 
had held office with twelve consular fasces, during the 
memorable year when the world's liberty was vindicated 
by Nero's downfall, he dedicated the remaining years of 
his life, like those of a gladiator who has received his rudis 
of honourable discharge, to Phcebus and the Muses ; he now 
cultivates Helicon instead of his wonted Forum. — Lib. vn. 
Ep. lxii. 

In a dedication by Dryden, addressed to the Duke of Northum- 
berland, he writes, " I regard you as another Silius Italicus, who, 
having passed over his consulship with applause, dismissed himself 
from business and from the gown, and employed his age among the 
shades in the readimg and imitation of Virgil : 

Emeritos Musis et Phcebo tradidit annos." 



LVIL 
PLINY. 

Go, my Thalia, take to the eloquent Pliny my little 
book; it is scarcely learned nor grave enough, but it is 
not chargeable with rusticity. It is no long labour to mount 
the steep street of the Subura ; when this is done, you will 
immediately behold the statue of Orpheus, at the top of a 
theatre wet from being sprinkled with perfumed showers; 
the wild beasts stand around, along with the eagle of Jove, 
wondering at his music. The next object is the house of 
your poet Pedo, on the top of which is sculptured an eagle 
with a smaller pinion. But beware, and do not strike at 



II.] • LITERATURE. 77 

Pliny's learned door, like to one intoxicated, at your own 
time. He gives his whole days to abstruse Minerva, whilst 
he plans for the ears of the Centumviri what both this 
age and posterity may compare with the orations of Cicero. 
You will go more safely at the time of the lights. This 
is your hour, when Bacchus rages, when the rose reigns, 
when the hair is moistened with perfume. At such a season 
rigid Catos may read me. — Lib. x. Ep. xix. 

Pliny mentions this epigram in a letter in which he expresses his 
sorrow at the news of Martial's death; of whom he observes that 
" Erat homo ingeniosus, acutus, acer, et qui plurimum in scribendo 
et salis haberet et fellis, nee candoris minus." He quotes from 
memory the ten concluding lines of the above epigram, which 
Melmoth has thus translated: 

Go, wanton Muse! but go with care, 
Nor meet ill-timed my Pliny's ear; 
He by sage Minerva taught, 
Gives the day to studious thought, 
And plans that eloquence divine, 
"Which shall to future ages shine, 
And rival, wondrous Tully! thine. 
Then, cautious watch the vacant hour 
When Bacchus reigns in all his power; 
When crown'd with many chaplets gay, 
E'en rigid Catos read my lay. 

Pliny mentions, that when Martial left Pome on his return to 
Spain, he defrayed the expenses of the poet's journey, not only as a 
testimony of his friendship, but in return for the verses with which 
he had been complimented. 

Jeremy Taylor, in his Discourse on the House of Feasting, quotes 
from the above epigram of Martial, the lines : 

Seras tutior ibis ad lacernas, 

Hsec hora est tua, cum furit Lyaeus, 

Cum regnat rosa, cum madent capilli. 

With regard to which he observes, that " all the time of life is lost, 



78 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. II.] 

when wine, and rage, and pleasure and folly steal away the heart of 
a man, and make him go singing to his grave." 

Ben Jonson concludes the dedication to the Inns of Court of his 
Play called Every Man out of his Humour, thus, in apparent imi- 
tation of Martial's epigram: "Yet I command it not to lie in the 
way of your most noble and useful studies to the public. But when 
the gown and cap is off, and the lord of liberty reigns, then to take it 
in your hands, may, perhaps, make some bencher^ tinctured with 
humanity, read and not repent him." The festivities of the Inns of 
Court, particularly described in Dugdale's Origines Juridiciales, are 
here alluded to, the reign of the Hose being supplied by the reign of 
the Lord of Misrule, and ancient Cato, in his convivial moods, by 
a Bencher. 



CHAPTER III. 
GENERAL LIFE. 



Martial's epigrams upon the subject of the present 
Chapter have been in particular request by modern writers, 
owing to their being applicable to all times and nations. 
This is not the less the case with regard to those epigrams 
which relate to the habits or manners of specified individuals, 
where, under their names, a general virtue, or vice, or foible 
is pointed at. The commencing epigrams in this Chapter 
describe the ways by which human happmess may be secured 
or frustrated. If it be objected that their tendency is 
Epicurean, as countenancing the maxim, that we ought to 
live to-day for to-morrow we die, it may be answered that 
modern divines and moralists have not on that account 
turned aside from them; but, in substituting the motive of 
eternal for that of temporary happiness, have largely availed 
themselves of Martial's reflections in support of Christian 
doctrines, and have wielded in a sacred cause the inimita- 
ble terseness and neatness of Martial's poetry. Moreover, 
independently of the reigning object of the epigrams in 
question, they will be found to contain many judicious 
remarks on the nature of the employments, and the direction 
of the abilities of mankind, and on a sensible enjoyment of 
the objects of pleasure with which Providence has enlivened 
our existence. 

Besides schemes for the conduct of life, the present 
Chapter contains numerous epigrams, founded on the inti- 



80 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

mate relations of society, and on occurrences that arise out 
of the social intercourse of a large community, and which 
are not merely the result of national and temporary con- 
ventionalities. The Chapter is concluded with a few epi- 
taphs and elegies, a subject in which it is the lot of humanity 
to feel a perpetual interest. It is conceived that enough 
will appear in the pages of this Chapter in particular to 
justify amply the praise which Martial arrogates for his 
book, that it savours of mankind, Jiominem pagina nostra 
sapit. 



LVIII. 

A HAPPY LIFE. 



The requisites for a happy life are the following : com- 
petency inherited and not acquired by labour; productive land, 
a hearth which never lacks a fire (focus perennis) ; total ab- 
sence of litigation ; rare occasion for the toga (the garb of busi- 
ness); a quiet mind; unimpaired physical vigour; health of 
body; prudent simplicity; friends that are, in all respects, your 
equals; familiar society; a table devoid of art; nights, not 
of revelling, but of freedom from cares ; a couch not sad nor 
licentious; sleep, which curtails the time of darkness; to 
be exactly what you wish to be; preferring no other con- 
dition to your own; neither to dread nor to long for your 
last hour. — Lib. x. Ep. xlvii. 

The above epigram has been thus translated by Cowley: 

Since, dearest Friend! 'tis your desire to see 
A true receipt of happiness from me, 
These are the chief ingredients, if not all : 
Take an estate neither too great, nor small, 
Which quantum sufficit, the doctors call. 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 81 

Let this estate from parents' care descend; 

The getting it too much of life doth spend. 

Take such a ground whose gratitude may be 

A fair encouragement for industry. 

Let constant fires the winter's fury tame, 

And let thy kitchen be a vestal flame. 

Thee to the town let never suit at law, 

And rarely, very rarely, business draw. 

Thy active mind in equal temper keep, 

In undisturbed peace, yet not in sleep. 

Let exercise a vigorous health maintain, 

Without which all the composition's vain; 

In the same weight prudence and innocence take; 

Ana of each does the just mixture make. 

But a few friendships wear, and let them be 

By nature and by fortune fit for thee; 

Instead of art and luxury in food, 

Let mirth and freedom make thy table good. 

If any cares into thy daytime creep, 

At night, without wine's opium, let them sleep. 

Let rest, which nature does to darkness wed, 

And not lust, recommend to thee thy bed. 

Be satisfied and pleas'd with what thou art: 

Act cheerfully and well th' allotted part, 

Enjoy the present hour, be thankful for the past, 

And neither fear nor wish th' approaches of the last. 

In Fenton's translation of the same epigram, the following lines 
may deserve notice: 

Pleas'd always with the lot my fates assign, 
Let me no change desire, no change decline; 
With every turn of Providence comply, 
Not tir'd with life, nor yet afraid to die. 

Somerville, the author of the Chase, has translated the above 
epigram. His concluding lines are: 

Pleas'd with thy present lot, not grudging at the past, 

Nor fearing when thy time shall come, nor hoping for thy last. 

MART. G 



82 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Hamilton (Anderson's English Poets) in a poem called the 
Wish, concludes: 

Such in some blest asylum let me lie, 

Take off my fill of life, and wait, not wish, to die. 

The preference given by Martial to inherited over acquired pos- 
sessions is impugned by Mr Sharpe, in his Essays. Lord Bacon, in 
his Colours of Good and Evil, canvasses this very point, assigning 
four colours for the position that what is obtained by labour and 
virtue is a greater good than what comes by favour and fortune, and 
four counter-colours in support of Martial's opinion. 

In the 203rd number of the Rambler, Dr Johnson observes, 
" Among Martial's requisites to happiness is Res non parta labore, sed 
relicta (an estate not gained by industry, but left by inheritance). It 
is necessary to the completion of every good, that it be timely ob- 
tained; for, whatever comes at the close of life will come too late 
to give much delight. Yet all human happiness has its defects; of 
what we do not gain for ourselves we have only a faint and imperfect 
fruition, because we cannot compare the difference between want and 
possession, or, at least, can derive from it no conviction of our own 
abilities, nor any increase of self-esteem; still, what we acquire by 
bravery or science, by mental or corporal diligence, comes at last 
when we cannot communicate, and therefore cannot enjoy it." 

Dryden, in the dedication of his translation of the Georgics to the 
Earl of Chesterfield, writes, u Res non parta labore, sed relicta, was 
thought by the poet to be one of the requisites to a happy life. Why 
should a reasonable man put it into the power of Fortune to make 
him miserable, when his ancestors have taken care to release him 
from her 1 ? He who is born to a pleasant estate, and is ambitious of 
offices at court, sets a stake to Fortune. You, my lord, enjoy your 
quiet in a garden, where you have not only the leisure of thinking, 
but the pleasure to think of nothing which can discompose your 
mind." 

With regard to Martial's focus perennis, or, as Cowley renders it, 
Vestal kitchen fire, it may be noticed that Ben Jonson, after a spe- 
cification of twenty-four Leges Convivales (Table-laws) which he had 
inscribed over the chimney-piece of his club-room called the Apollo, 
in the Old Devil Tavern, at Temple-bar (now Child's banking-house), 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 83 

has a conclusion which would appear to be applicable to all his rules, 
viz. Focus perennis esto (let a fire be always kept lighted). 

On the requisite of prudent simplicity, Jeremy Taylor, in a sermon 
on Christian simplicity, writes, " Prudens simplicitas is Martial's cha- 
racter of a good man ; a wary and cautious innocence. A true sim- 
plicity is that which leaves to a man arms defensive, his castles and 
strong forts, but takes away his swords and spears, his anger and his 
malice, his peevishness and spite." After referring to the exhortation 
in St Matthew (x. 16) upon this subject, he observes that "we do not 
live in an age in which there is so much need to bid men be wary, as 
to take care that they are innocent." 

The item JSfox non ebria, sed soluta curis, is quoted by Warton in 
illustration of the passage in Milton's sonnet : 

To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench, 
In mirth that after no repenting draws. 

The motto of the 9th number of the Rambler is Martial's Quod sis 
esse velis, nihilque malis, of which a version is given, 

Chuse what you are, no other state prefer. 

In this number Dr Johnson treats of the rivalry of different profes- 
sions, and the tendency to depreciate members of a different profes- 
sion from our own; he points out the good and bad effects of an 
esprit de corps. 

Montaigne, in an essay entitled De V Experience, observes, in old 
French, " Je voudroy a ce mestier un homme content de sa fortune, 

Quid sit esse velit, nihilque mafoV 

And he would extend the principle to contentment with the form 
of government under which any person is born. 

Ayme l'estat tel que tu le vois estre, 
S'il est royal, ayme la royaute, 
S'il est de peu, ou bien communaute, 
Ayme l'aussi : car Dieu t'y a fait naistre. 

The concluding line of the epigram, " Summum nee metuas diem, 
nee optes," is curious in regard to its modern use, if, as commentators 
generally suppose, it suggested some thoughts and expressions to 
Milton, in his Paradise Lost, where he relates a conversation between 
the Archangel Michael and Adam, who says, 

G2 



84 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Henceforth I fly not death, nor would prolong 
Life much; bent rather, how I may be quit 
Fairest and easiest of this cumbrous charge, 
Which I must keep till my appointed day 
Of rendering up, and patiently attend 
My dissolution. Michael replied, 

Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st 
Live well; how long, or short, permit to Heaven. 
The French poet, Maynard, on his retirement from Paris into the 
provinces, in his old age, inscribed over the door of his library, 
Las d'esperer, et de me plaindre 
Des Muses, des Grands, et du sort, 
C'est ici que l'attends la mort, 
Sans la desirer, ni la craindre. 
In a very early translation of the epigram by the Earl of Surrey, 
the last line is rendered, " Ne wish for death, ne fear his might." Nee 
upias, nee metuas, is the motto of the Earls of Hardwicke. 



LIX. 

ROAD TO HAPPINESS. 

If, dear Martialis ! you and I could enjoy together days 
free from care, and could dispose at will of our leisure hours, 
and could be at liberty to indulge in what is really life, 
we should know nothing of the atria (saloons where salu- 
tations were made), or any other part of the houses of the 
powerful, nor of vexatious lawsuits, nor of the sad Forum, 
nor of proud images of our ancestors. But, instead, Ave 
should be carried in our litters, we should listen to stories, 
and peruse short books; we should enjoy the Campus Mar- 
tius, the Porticos, the shade, the columns of the Aqueduct 
Virgo, the thermw (warm-baths). These would be ever our 
labours, these our places of resort. As it is, however, neither 
you nor I live for ourselves; we behold the good suns shine, 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 85 

and pass away ; lost are they for ever, yet, nevertheless, they 
are counted in our reckoning. Is it possible that any one 
who knows how to live delays to live accordingly? — Lib. v. 
Ep. xxi. 

The above epigram is thus versified by Cowley; in his version 
he has introduced some sentiments of a disappointed cavalier; Cow- 
ley's version or paraphrase is nearly double the length of the ori- 
ginal, and may be thought inferior to it in simplicity and neatness of 
expression : 

If, dearest friend, if my good fate might be, 
I'd enjoy at once, a quiet life and thee; 
If we for happiness could leisure find, 
And wand'ring Time into a method bind, 
, We should not, sure, the great man's favour need, 
Nor on long hopes, the Court's thin diet, feed. 
We should not patience find daily to hear 
The calumnies and flatteries spoken there. 
We should not the lords' tables humbly use, 
Or talk in ladies' chambers love and news. 
But books and wise discourse, gardens and fields, 
And all the joys that unmixed nature yields; 
Thick summer shades, where winter still does lie, 
Bright winter fires, that summer's part supply. 
Sleep not controlled by cares, confined to night, 
Or bound in any rule but a,ppetite. 
Free, but not savage, nor ungracious mirth, 
Bich wines to give it quick and easy birth; 
A few companions which ourselves should choose, 
A gentle mistress, and a gentler Muse : 
Such, dearest friend, such, without doubt should be 
Our place, our business, and our company. 
Now, to himself, alas! does neither live, 
But sees good suns, of which we are to give 
A strict account, set, and march quick away: 
Knows a man how to live, and does he stay? 

Pereunt et imputantur (they perish and are reckoned), though, 
apparently, intended by Martial only to indicate how much of life 



86 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

had been sjDent, has been inscribed as a motto on dials, and perhaps 
may be thought more pointed and edifying than most of its Latin 
rivals, as tempus fugit, or labuntur mini; especially to the scholar 
who can supply the previous line, Soles effugere atque abire sentit. 

Pereunt et imputantur are the words adopted by Cotton as the 
motto of a small poem entitled To-morrow, in which the following 
lines occur : 

Arrest the present moments, 
For be assured they all are arrant tell-tales ; 
And though their flight be silent, and their path 
Tractless as the winged couriers of the air, 
They post to heaven, and there record thy folly; 
Thou shalt be made to answer at the bar 
For every fugitive. 

The motto of the 98th Number of the Lounger (a continuation of 
the Mirror), which Number was written by Mr Mackenzie, author 
of the Man of Feeling, is : 

Nee domos potentum 
Nossemus, nee imagines superbas. 

The writer of the Paper, who calls himself John Homespun, 
states that he is a freeholder, and possesses considerable influence in 
a county; and that a Lord, or rather his Lady, whose son is aspir- 
ing to represent the county, invited himself and the ladies of his 
family to their house. A description is given of the reception and 
treatment of the writer's family at the great house. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on the subject of Habitual Sins, 
observes that " not to repent instantly is a great loss of our time, and 
it may be, for all we know, the loss of all our hopes ;" quoting from 
the above epigram: 

Nunc vivit sibi neuter, heu, bonosque 
Soles effugere atque abire sentit, 
Qui nobis pereunt, et imputantur. 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 87 

LX. 

LIVING TWICE. 

Antoninus Primus, on this day, numbers fifteen Olym- 
piads (seventy-five years), passed in a pleasant tenour of 
existence. He looks back on the days and years he has 
lived without their raising any fear about the proximate 
waters of Lethe. To his memory not one of his past days 
is grievous, or other than pleasant, not one which he would 
not wish to call to mind. A good man amplifies the span 
of his existence ; for this is to live twice, to be able to find 
enjoyment in past life. — Lib. x. Ep. xxiii. 

The motto of Rogers's Pleasures of Memory is taken from this 
epigram, viz. : 

Hoc est 

Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui. 

Rogers adverts to this topic in the latter part of his poem, where he 
dwells on " the rich relics of a well-spent hour." 

The motto of the 94th Number of the Spectator is the same as 
that taken for the Pleasures of Memory. The motto of the 40th 
Number of the Rambler consists of the last four lines of the epigram, 
of which the following version is given : 

No day's remembrance shall the good regret, 
Nor wish one better moment to forget; 
They stretch the limits of their narrow span, 
And, by enjoying, live past life again. 

The Paper in the Spectator is illustrated by opinions of Locke and 
Malebranche, and enlivened by Eastern tales; that in the Rambler 
abounds with profound reflections on human life. The two Papers 
exhibit an interesting comparison of the turns of thought and diver- 
sities of style in Addison and Johnson. 

Colley Gibber adopts as a motto for his autobiography the same as 
that taken by Addison and Rogers, with the following version: 

When years no more of active life retain, 
'Tis youth renew'd to laugh 'em o'er again. 



88 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Vincent Bourne, in some Latin verses on the death of Cotes, con- 
cludes : 

Ampliat setatem sibi vir bonus; ampliat et qui 

Praeclarum studio conficit auctor opus. 
Hoc est vivere bis, vita potuisse priori, 
Yivere bis, vita posteriore frui. 
i.e. a good man amplifies the term of his existence, and he also 
amplifies it, who by study accomplishes a famous work : this is what 
may be called living twice, whether in the reminiscence of life which 
is past, or foretaste of life which is future. 

In the 57th Number of the Lounger, a correspondent, who repre- 
sents himself as an old man, and gives a detail of the bright prospects 
of his rising family, in which he was in the habit of indulging, makes 
a reflection that this is, indeed, living twice. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on Conscience, observes, " A good 
conscience refreshed the sorrowing of Hezekiah when he was smitten 
with the plague. It not only brought pleasure for what was past, so 
doubling the good of it : 

Yivere bis, vita posse priore frui; 
but it also added something to the number of his years: 
Ampliat setatis spatium sibi vir bonus." 
Sir William Trumbull writes to Pope, in a letter dated June 19, 
1715-16, "I cannot forbear to add a piece of artifice I have been 
guilty of on occasion of my being obliged to congratulate the birth- 
day of a friend of mine ; when, finding I had no materials of my own, 
I very frankly sent him your imitation of Martial's epigram on 
Antonius Primus: 

At length, my friend, (while time with still career 
Wafts on his gentle wing this eightieth year,) 
Sees his past days safe out of fortune's power, 
Nor dreads approaching fate's uncertain hour; 
Reviews his life, and, in the strict survey, 
Finds not one moment he could wish away, 
Pleas'd with the series of each happy day. 
Such, such a man extends his life's short space, 
And from the goal again renews the race: 
For he lives twice, who can at once employ 
The present well, and e'en the past enjoy. 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 89 

This has been applauded so much, that I am in danger of commencing 
Poet, perhaps Laureat (pray desire my good friend Mr Howe to 
enter a caveat), provided you will further increase my stock in this 
bank. In which proceeding I have laid the foundation of my estate, 
and as honestly as many have begun theirs. But now being a little 
fearful, as young beginners often are, I offer to you (for I have con- 
cealed the true author) whether you will give me orders to declare 
who is the father of this fine child, or not?" 

The motto of the family of the Baronets Becher is Bis vivit, qui 
bene. This is the third motto from Martial on a coat of arms, in the 
English Peerage and Baronetage, quoted in this work; and, it is be- 
lieved, that there are no more. Our Aristocracy has more commonly 
adopted for this purpose the robusti carminis offas. 



LXL 
PROLONGING LIFE. 



Liber! the sweetest solicitude of your friends, worthy 
to live among eternal roses, if you be wise, let your hair 
always shine with Syrian oil, and let flowery garlands crown 
your head. Let your white crystal cups be darkened by 
Falernian wine, and let love enliven your soft couch. — Who- 
ever has lived thus even to a middle age, has made life 
longer than as it was given to him. — Lib. vm. Ep. lxxvii. 
The epigram is thus translated by Ben Jonson : 

Liber! of all thy friends the sweetest care 

Thou, worthy in eternal flower to fare, 

If thou be'st wise, with Syrian oil let shine 

Thy locks, and rosy garments crown thy head; 
Dark thy clear glass with old Falernian wine, 

And heat with softest love thy softer bed. 
He that but living half his days, dies such, 
Makes his life longer than 'twas given him, much. 
The thought in the above epigram probably also suggested to Ben 
Jonson the point in his epigram addressed to William Roe : 



90 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. 



When nature bids us leave to live, 'tis late 

Then to begin, my Roe! He makes a state 

In life, that can employ it; and takes hold 

On the true causes, ere they grow too old. 

Delay is bad, doubt -worse, depending worst; 

Each best day of our life escapes us first. 

Then since we, more than many, these truths know, 

Though life be short, let us not make it so. 

The epigram of Martial is more closely followed in one by Ben 
Jonson, addressed to Sir Ralph Skelton, which is not liable to the 
imputation of Epicurean laxity. It concludes thus : 
Which is to live to conscience, not to show. 
He that, but living half his age, lives such, 
Makes the whole longer than was given him, much. 



LXII. 

HEALTHY LIFE. 



Cotta has lived sixty, and, I think, two more harvests. 
Nor can he call to mind a single day in which he has been 
confined to a sick bed. He puts out his finger to the eminent 
physicians Alcontus, Dasius, Symmachus, but it is the finger, 
not of a patient, but that, so-called, of scorn. If our years 
be properly computed, and a separation be made from the 
happier moments of life, of what burning fever, or wearisome 
lassitude, or agony of mind, have taken to themselves, we are, 
in fact, infants, though we appear old. Whoever deems the 
ages of Priam and Nestor to have been necessarily long is 
grossly deceived; for life is not simply living, but living in 
health. — Lib. vi. Ep. lxx. 

The motto of the 48th number of the Rambler is, 
Non est vivere, sed valere, vita. 
Eor life is not to live, but to be well. 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 91 

The Paper contains useful reflections on the neglect of health. 
Dr Johnson treats of health as neglected by the votaries of business, 
the followers of pleasure, and those who lose their health "in an 
irregular and impetuous pursuit of literary accomplishments." He 
reflects on errors of the " valetudinarian race," and leaves us a lite- 
rary relic in a prose translation by himself of the celebrated Ode to 
Health, one of the most beautiful gems of the Greek Anthology. 

The same motto is taken for the 143rd number of the Spectator, 
by Steele, with a version, 

For life is only life when blessed with health. 

The Paper is chiefly directed against valetudinarians who molest 
their friends with the details of their illnesses, and against the ima- 
ginary complaints of ladies of fashion. 



LXIII. 

VERGE OF LIFE. 



Julius! not second in my memory to any one of my 
companions, if long-proved friendship, if hoary ties are to 
count. Now that a sixtieth Consul is nearly numbering your 
years, and your life cannot be protracted for a long period, 
you will not wisely put off things which, as you may perceive, 
there is a probability of your not living to accomplish; and 
you will calculate on the past only as being your own. Let 
cares, and labour with its chains, be put off till another day ; 
but joys do not remain; if not tasted they fly away. Seize 
pleasure, therefore, with both hands, and in a close embrace ; 
even with all our efforts it will escape as through the folds 
of a toga. Believe me, it is not the part of a wise man to 
say, "I will live;" to-morrow's life is too late, live to-day. — 
Lib. i. Ep. xvi. 



92 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on Repentance, quotes from the 
above epigram the lines, 

Non bene distuleris, videas quse posse negari; 
Sera nimis vita est crastina, vive hodie, 

wherein he observes that a man " cannot lie in sin a moment without 
hazarding eternity, every instant is a danger; that a death-bed peni- 
tence is not productive of the fruits of amendment of life." In 
another Discourse on Considerations preparatory to Death, Jeremy 
Taylor quotes from Martial's epigram the lines, 

Bis jam pen! tibi Consul trigesimus instat, 
Et numerat paucos vel tua vita dies. 

As to which he remarks, that the "business and impertinent affairs 
of most men steal all their time, and they are restless in a foolish 
motion: but this is not the progress of a man; he is no further 
advanced in the course of life, though he reckon many years, for still 
his soul is childish and trifling, like an untaught boy." 



LXIV. 

PROSPEEOUS INIQUITY. 

Selius affirms that there are no Gods, and that Heaven 
is empty; and he produces a proof of his assertion; viz. 
that whilst he denies all Providence, he beholds himself 
affluent. — Lib. iy. Ep. xxi. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on Faith and Patience, quotes the 
above epigram, observing that " when men choose a good cause upon 
confidence that an ill one cannot thrive, that is not for the love 
of virtue or duty to God, but for profit and secular interest. Take in 
all the aids you can, and if the fancy of standers-by, or the hearing of 
a cock-crow, can add any collateral aids to thy weakness, refuse them 
not ; but let thy state of sufferings begin with choice, and be con- 
firmed with knowledge, and place your reliance upon the love and the 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 93 

aids of God, and the expectation of heaven, and the present sense of 
duty ; and then your actions will be as glorious in the event, as they 
are prudent in the enterprise, and religious in the prosecution." 

Martial's epigram is also quoted by Todd, in his edition of Milton, 
in illustration of a passage in the lady's speech in Gomus : 

But with besotted base ingratitude, 
Crams, and blasphemes his feeder. 



LXV. 

CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 

Taurus, you delay making choice of a profession, some- 
times giving out that you will be a Rhetorician, at others 
a Lawyer. You are suffering the old ages of Priam and 
Nestor to glide away ; whilst it is already late for you to end, 
how much more so to begin! If you have any spirit or 
talent, make a start. Three Rhetoricians have died in the 
course of the last year ; and, if you spurn the schools, behold, 
all the Courts of Law are now full of lawsuits, Marsyas 
himself might get employed as a lawyer at the forum. 
Away with delays; how long are we to be spectators of 
your wavering? Whilst you are reiterating your doubts 
about what you will be hereafter, you show us that you 
can be one thing at present, which is, nothing at all. — 
Lib. ii. Ep. lxiv. 

The allusion to Marsyas implies that circumstances were so fa- 
vourable for embracing the profession of the law, that a marble statue 
might become a lawyer. A statue of Marsyas undergoing the punish- 
ment of being flayed alive by Apollo, was placed at the entrance to 
the Roman forum, as a memento to litigants on the subject of costs; 
Marsyas having been cast in a suit with Apollo touching the relative 
merits of the flute and the lyre. 



94 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Jeremy Taylor has quoted and applied Martial's epigram in his 
Discourse on a late Death-bed Repentance, and also in that on Sins 
of Infirmity. He observes that "there is no infirmity greater than 
that a man shall not be able to determine for himself what he ought 
to do." 

Part of this epigram is adopted as a motto for the 19 th number 
of the Rambler, with a poetical English version : 

To rhetoric now, and now to law inclin'd; 
Uncertain where to fix thy changing mind; 
Old Priam's age, or Nestor's may be out, 
And Thou, O Taurus ! still go on in doubt : 
Come, then, how long such wavering shall we see? 
Thou may'st doubt on; thou now can'st nothing be. 

Dr Johnson illustrates the subject by a sketch of the life of Poly- 
philus, "a man whom all his acquaintances had, from his first appear- 
ance in the world, feared for the quickness of his discernment, and 
admired for the multiplicity of his attainments, but whose progress in 
life and usefulness to mankind had been hindered by the superfluity 
of his knowledge and the celerity of his mind." Polyphilus, in a 
ramble to London, fell accidentally into a company of physicians, and 
was much pleased with the prospect of turning philosophy to profit. 
He embraced the medical profession, and advocated a new theory of 
fevers ; but going to see a novel plant in flower at Chelsea, in crossing 
Westminster Bridge to take water, he met the Lord Chancellor's 
coach, which gave a new turn to his ideas, and he became a lawyer, 
la time, however, he discovered numerous objections to the legal 
profession; and he entered the army. After a campaign he had 
recourse to literary pursuits; deciphered Chinese books, composed a 
farce, collected a vocabulary of obsolete terms of English law, wrote 
an inquiry concerning the ancient Corinthian brass, and formed a 
new scheme of the variations of the needle. Thus, writes Johnson, 
" was this powerful genius, which might have extended the sphere of 
any science, or benefited the world in any profession, dissipated in a 
boundless variety, without profit to others or himself." After some 
admirable observations on the effect of balancing all the arguments 
on every side in the choice of an employment, Johnson concludes 
" that of two states of life equally consistent with religion and virtue, 
he who chooses earliest, chooses best." 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 95 

LXVL 

PROCRASTINATION. 

Posthumus! you say that you will live to-morrow, 
always to-morrow. Tell me, Posthumus! when that to- 
morrow will come? How far distant is that to-morrow? 
where is it to be sought for ? Does it lie concealed among 
the Parthians and the Armenians? That to-morrow has 
already the years of Priam and Nestor. Tell me for what 
price can I buy that to-morrow? You will live, you say, 
to-morrow; it is late, Posthumus, to live to-day; he is wise 
who lived yesterday. — Lib. v. Ep. lix. 

Cowley has thus translated the above epigram: 

To-morrow you will live, you always cry; 
In what far country does this morrow lie, 
That 'tis so mighty long ere it arrive? 
Beyond the Indies does this morrow live? 
'Tis so far fetch'd this morrow, that I fear 
'Twill be both very old and very dear. 
To-morrow I will live, the fool does say; 
To-day itselfs too late, the wise liv'd yesterday. 

Young, in his Night Thoughts, has a parallel passage to the above 

epigram, which may possibly have been suggested by it : 

That awful independent on to-morrow, 

Whose work is done; who triumphs in the past; 

Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile, 

Nor, like the Parthian, wound him as they fly. 
% * * * * -s:- 

Lorenzo — for yesterdays to come 1 ? 

The motto of the 80th Number of the Lounger, by Mackenzie, is : 

Die mihi, eras istud, Posthume, quando venit. 

The Paper contains a letter signed "Your most obedient servant, 
To-morrow." The writer wishes to take out a Commission of Bank- 
ruptcy in the Lounger, and desires that it may be signified to the 



96 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

different classes of his creditors what division they were to expect. 
He then announces that dividends may be anticipated by those with 
whom he had become acquainted at Court, and in Courts of Law, 
especially Chancery, Projectors, Authors, Beauties; to all of whom 
he was deeply in debt by promises of a to-morrow. 

In the 96th Number of the Observer (by Cumberland), is given 
the outline of a will, in which To-day is supposed to devise a load of 
procrastinations in the nature of resolutions, promises, and engage- 
ments, to his heir and successor, To-morrow. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on the Invalidity of a Death-bed 
Repentance, quotes the two concluding lines of Martial's epigram, as 
to which he observes, that "he that repents to-day repents late 
enough that he did not begin yesterday; but he that puts off till 
to-morrow is vainer still." The same lines are quoted by Jeremy 
Taylor in another Discourse on Habitual Sins, wherein he writes, 
"Think it not a hasty commandment that we are called upon to 
repent to-day. It was too much that yesterday passed by you, it 
is late enough if you do it to-day." And, in another Discourse on 
the Obligation of the Laws of Jesus Christ, Jeremy Taylor, after 
quoting from Martial's epigram, observes "Though hodie (to-day), 
signifies the present time, yet the repentance which began yesterday, 
and which took an earlier hodie is better than that which begins 
to-day; but that which stays till to-morrow is the worst of all. Heri 
and hodie, yesterday and to-day, signify eternity: so it is said of 
Christ, yesterday and to-day, the same for ever. But hodie and eras, 
to-day and to-morrow, signify but a little while. ' To-day, and 
to-morrow I work,' that is, I work a little while, and 'the third 
day,' that is, very shortly and quickly, 'I shall make an end'." 



LXVII. 
DYING, FOR FEAR OF DEATH. 

Fannius, when he was flying from an enemy, killed 
himself. I ask if this be not madness, to die for fear of 
dying ? — Lib. n. Ep. lxxx. 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 97 

Butler, in Hudibras, seems to have been pleased with the turn of 
expression in this epigram ; he has twice apparently imitated it : thus 
in Canto III. Part in. : 

For men as resolute appear 

With too much, as too little, fear; 

And when they're out of hopes of flying, 

Will run away from death by dying. 

And also in Canto II. Part m. : 

For so our ignorance was flamm'd, 
To damn ourselves, t' avoid being damn'd. 
Montaigne quotes the above epigram in an Essay in which he 
shows that in endeavouring to evade death by flying from inconve- 
niences, we often run into its mouth; his translator thus versifies 
Martial's epigram : 

Can there be greater madness, pray reply, 
Than that one should, for fear of dying, die 1 ? 

Jeremy Taylor has twice quoted the above epigram of Martial, 
and speaks of Fannius as of a household name. In a Discourse on 
Remedies against the Fear of Death, after quoting the above epigram 
of Martial, he observes, " If, therefore, you be afraid of death, consider 
that you will have the less need to fear it, by how much the less 
you do fear it. Thus you may cure your direct fear by a reflex act 
of prudence and consideration. Fannius had not died so soon, if he 
had not feared death." And, again, in a Discourse on Penal Laws, he 
writes, " To die in order to avoid poverty, the torments of love, or any 
evil affliction whatsoever, is not the part of a valiant man, but of a 
coward:" after quoting Martial's epigram, he adds, "Fannius being 
pursued by the enemy killed himself out of fear ;" and, again, " It may 
be cowardice to die in some cases; and to die in order to preserve 
chastity is to sin to avoid a sin, like Fannius' s case of fear." He 
supports the latter questionable opinion by the authority that "Abra- 
ham ventured his wife's chastity rather than his own life," and he 
hints his disapprobation of the Yirgin-martyrs. 

The Chaplain of the Ambassador to the Great Mogul, in giving 
a highly interesting narrative of the concluding period of the life of 
the celebrated, but not adequately-appreciated Coryat, relates his 
falling into a swoon at the Ambassador's house : the Chaplain writes, 

MART. H 



98 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

" O what pains this poor man took to make himself a subject of pre- 
sent and after discourse ! being troubled at nothing for the present, 
unless with the fear of not living to reap that fruit he was so 
ambitious of in all his undertakings. At last, being come to himself, 
he told us that some sad thoughts of not living to publish his travels, 
had immediately before presented themselves to his fancy, which, as 
he conceived, put him into that distemper; like Fannius, in Martial, 
ne moriare, mori, to prevent death by dying." 



LXVIII. 

SUICIDE. 



(I.) 
You follow the dogmas of the great Thrasea, and of the 
perfect Cato, in a manner to show that you wish to be like 
them; but you do not rush with a naked breast on drawn 
swords ; in which I commend you. A Man is not to my mind 
who seeks for reputation by the easy spilling of his blood. 
I prefer the Man who can deserve praise on other grounds 
than his own death. — Lib. i. Ep. ix. 

(ii.) 
Stoic Chseremon ! Do you expect that I should admire 
and reverence your magnanimity in excessively extolling 
suicide? All this virtue you derive from a pitcher with a 
broken ear, from a sad hearth never warmed by fire, from a 
bed with a coverlid of coarse cloth, without hangings and full 
of bugs; from the same toga, and that a very short one, 
by night and by day. great Man that thou art, who 
canst bid adieu to the dregs of spoilt vinegar; who canst 
go without straw and black bread! Let only thy pillow 
swell with Ligonic wool, and let purple embroidery cover 
thy couch; enjoy Ccecubian wine, and revel in sensuality, 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 99 

0, how then thou wouldst wish to live thrice the years of 
Kestor, and wouldst grudge the loss of a single day out of 
them! It is easy to despise death in adversity; he is the 
brave man who can endure misery. — Lib. xi. Ep. lvii. 

Montaigne observes, with regard to the second of the above 
epigrams, that "there is more consistency in suffering the chain 
we are tied to than breaking it; and there is more pregnant evidence 
of fortitude in Eegulus than in Cato." The translator thus renders 
the lines of the epigram which Montaigne quotes: 

The wretched well may laugh at death, but he 
Is braver far who lives in misery. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on Faith working by Love, quotes 
several lines from the last of the above epigrams, which he thus 
closely applies, but with a different object: "Some men are very 
good when they are afflicted, when the gown of the day is the mantle 
of the night, and cannot at the same time cover the head, and make 
the feet warm : when they have but one broken dish, and no spoon, 
then they are humble and modest, then they can suffer an injury and 
bear contempt. But, give them riches, and they grow insolent ; fear 
and pusillanimity did their first work, and an opportunity to sin 
undoes it all." In another Discourse on the Invalidity of a Death-bed 
Repentance, Jeremy Taylor quotes, as appropriate to his subject, the 
concluding line of the above epigram : 

Hunc volo, laudari qui sine morte potest. . 



LX1X. 

DYING FOR ANOTHER. 

If, Lucanus and Tullius ! the same fates had been 

awarded to you as to Castor and Pollux (living alternate 

days) there would be a noble struggle of affection between 

you as to which should die first for his Brother ; and 

h2 



100 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. 



whichever first descended to the Shades below, would have 
exclaimed, Live, Brother, your time, live mine! (Vive tuo, 
/rater , tempore, vive meo). — Lib, i. Ep. xxxvu. 

This epigram is quoted by Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse upon 
Alms, in which he enumerates nineteen separate Works of Mercy; 
the eighteenth is " To die for my brother." Martial has a similar 
sentiment of great beauty: 

Qui te, Prisce, reliquit, 
Yivit, qua voluit vivere parte magis. 



LXX. 

BOY KILLED BY AN ICICLE. 

Where a gate of Rome is always dripping in consequence 
of its proximity to the Vipsanian Aqueduct, an icicle of 
water made heavy by wintry frost fell on the throat (jugulum) 
of a youth who was passing underneath. It inflicted a cruel 
fate on the unfortunate boy, and then instantly its slender 
point melted in the warm wound it had made. What cruel- 
ties will not Fortune permit to itself! Or where is not 
Death to be found if you Waters turn cut-throats (Jugulatis)? 
Lib. iv. Ep. xviii. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on Considerations preparatory to 
Death, quotes the above epigram, observing on the multiform modes 
of death, as "by God's mercy, by God's anger, by every thing in 
nature, and every thing in chance." 

Becker takes his Gallus out of Borne through the Capenian gate, 
which he describes as an antique rocky arch, from the moist stones of 
which great drops from the water of the aqueduct which was carried 
over it were always falling. 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 101 

LXXL 

DEATH CAUSED BY DBEAMING OF A PHYSICIAN. 

He bathed in our company, at which time he was cheer- 
ful; he afterwards supped with us: in the morning he was 
found dead. Do you want to know the cause of his sudden 
death ? He had seen the physician Hermocrates in a dream. 
— Lib. vi. Ep. liii. 

The ridicule on physicians in the above epigram is taken frorn^a 
Greek epigram; another Greek epigram, in the form of an epitaph, 
makes the deceased say that he died of fright in consequence of the 
sudden recurrence of a certain physician to his memory. Montaigne 
quotes Martial's epigram on the apparition of Hermocrates, and, in 
connexion therewith, relates several pleasant stories about physicians. 

The first two lines of Martial's epigram, relating only to a 
person's sudden death, and not to any fanciful cause of it, are quoted 
by Jeremy Taylor in a Discourse on the Preparation for Death; 
he observes on them that "wise men should be never surprised at 
what we are sure will somehow or other happen." 






LXXII. 

CONNUBIAL FELICITY. 

My friend Pudens marries Claudia Peregrina. Hymen ! 
be ready with your torches. As fitly is the rare cinnamon 
blended with nard, as fitly is the Massic wine mixed with 
Attic honey ; nor more fitly are elms united with the tender 
vines; nor do rills love more the lotus, nor their banks the 
myrtle. Concord! garbed in white attire, reside always 
with that nuptial couch ! and may Yenus be ever propitious 
to so suitable a marriage! After a lapse of years may 



102 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Claudia love, as now, her then aged husband; and may she, 
even when she is old, not appear old in his eyes! — Lib, iv. 
Ep. xiii. 

The latter lines of the above epigram are adopted as a motto 
for the 506th number of the Spectator, and as another for the 
167th number of the Rambler, of which the version given in the 
Spectator is, 

Perpetual harmony their bed attend, 
And, Yenus ! still the well-match' d pair befriend ! 
May she, when Time has sunk him into years, 
Love her old man, and cherish his white hairs; 
Nor he perceive her charms through age decay, 
But think each happy sun his bridal clay. 

The version in the Rambler is, 

Their nuptial bed may smiling Concord dress, 
And Yenus still the happy union bless! 
Wrinkled with age, may mutual love and truth 
To their dim eyes recall the bloom of youth. 

Ausonius has expanded Martial's idea at the conclusion of his 
epigram, apparently in imitation of him: he expresses a hope that 
himself and his wife should continue to appear juvenile to each other, 
notwithstanding he might become more aged than Nestor, and she 
than the Sibyl Deiphobe. 

The following passage in Dugald Stewart's Essay on the Beautiful 
illustrates the same sentiment, and may be considered a testimony to 
its truth and delicacy. It is by the process of association that the 
"mental attractions of a beautiful woman supplant those of her 
person in the heart of her lover ; and that when the former have the 
good fortune to survive the latter, they appropriate to themselves, by 
an imperceptible metaphor, that language which, in its literal sense, 
has ceased to have a meaning. In this case a very pleasing arrange- 
ment of Nature is exhibited; the qualities of mind which insensibly 
stole, in the first instance, those flattering epithets which are descrip- 
tive of a fair exterior, now restoring their borrowed embellishments, 
and keeping alive, in the eye of conjugal affection, that beauty which 
has long perished to every other." 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 103 

LXXIII. 

A KICH WIFE. 

Do you ask me why I am unwilling to marry a rich wife ? 
It is because I do not wish to be taken to wife. A matron 
should hold a second place to her husband, otherwise they 
are not a pair. — Lib. viii. Ep. xn. 

Boileau, in one of his satires, has a line in which the above epi- 
gram is imitated, with the modification of marrying a master : 

Quoiqu'il en puisse estre, 
Je ne suis point si sot que d'epouser mon maistre. 

On which passage a French commentator observes, that Boileau 
wished to imitate the same beauty of language as in Martial, trans- 
lating uxori nubere nolo mece, epouser mon maistre," whereas the 
Latin phrase nubere marito was applicable to women, as that of dueere 
uxor em to men; "c'est en quoi consiste la finesse du bon-mot de 
Martial." 

Jeremy Taylor, in his Discourse on the Marriage Ring, quotes 
from the above epigram of Martial, the last two lines : 

Inferior matrona suo sit, Prisce, marito : 
Non aliter fuerint fceniina virque pares. 

Upon which he observes, 'that "The woman that went oefore the 
man in the way of death is commanded to follow him in the way of 
love, and that makes the society more perfect, and the union profit- 
able, and the harmony complete." 



LXXIV. 

MUTUAL FRIENDSHIP. 



Marcus! you complain that, in these days, there is no 
Pylades, no Orestes to be found. I answer, Pylades and 
Orestes drank the same wine (bibebat idem) ; neither of them 



104 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

had a better thrush nor finer bread served to him than the 
other, when they supped together. You devour Lucrine 
oysters, whilst I am set to feed on flabby sea-urchins; and' 
yet my palate is as nobly-born as yours. You are clad in a 
cloak of Egyptian wool and of Tyrian dye, I in one that is 
the coarse product of Gaul. Can I in a blanket love you in 
a purple robe ? That I may act the part of Pylades, let some 
one appear to me in the character of Orestes. Words will 
not do this ; Marcus ! to be loved, you must love. — Lib. vi. 
Ep. XT, 

The above epigram is adopted by Johnson for the 149th number 
of the Rambler, with the following version : 

You wonder now that no man sees 
Such friends as those of ancient Greece. 
Here lies the point — Orestes' meat 
Was just the same his friend did eat ; 
Nor can it yet be found his wine 
Was better, Pylades ! than thine. 
In home-spun russet I am drest, 
Your cloth is always of the best. 
But, honest Marcus, if you please 
To chuse me for your Pylades, 
Remember, words alone are vain; 
Love — if you would be lov'd again. 

Johnson's Paper consists of a letter to the Rambler, from a lady 
who had " passed much of her time in a dependent state, and con- 
sequently had received many favours in the opinion of those at whose 
expense she had been maintained, for which she did not feel in her 
heart any burning gratitude, or tumultuous affection." The letter 
concludes, " I beg to be informed, Mr Rambler, how much we can be 
supposed to owe to beneficence exerted on terms like these 1 to bene- 
ficence which pollutes its gifts with contumely, and may be truly said 
to pander to pride 1 I would willingly be told whether insolence does 
not reward its own liberalities, and whether he that exacts servility 
can, with justice, at the same time, expect affection?" 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 105 

The last two lines of the above epigram are quoted by Jeremy 
Taylor in a Discourse on Friendship, in which he discusses the point, 
whether we ought to love a brother more than a friend ? He observes 
that David loved Jonathan more than he loved his brother Eliab, and 
he concludes, somewhat to the same purport as Martial, that " If my 
brother says I ought to love him best, then he ought to love me best. 
If he says I must love him only because he is my brother, whether he 
loves me or not, he is ridiculous." In another discourse, in which 
Jeremy Taylor argues in favour of the chalice being received in the 
Sacrament not less than the bread, he observes, " I will not venture 
to assign to each their portion and effect, and therefore I will not 
take notice that the chalice is representative and effective of union 
and charity, though that is usual enough in societies and friendships. 
Pylades, Marce, bibebat idem.'" 



LXXV. 

INTIMATE FMENDS. 



I have lived on terms of friendship with you, Julius, 
if I recollect right, thirty-four harvests. Our friendship has 
yielded pleasures not altogether unmixed with pains; but 
the pleasures have preponderated; and if all the coloured 
balls were collected, and placed against each other, the 
crowd of white would exceed that of black. If you wish 
to avoid an alloy to your happiness, and to escape the eating 
cares of the soul, do not make yourself too much of a com- 
panion to any one: you will taste less of joy, but also less 
of sorrow. — Lib. xu. Ep. xxxiv. 

In a passage of Cicero's Treatise upon Friendship, Cicero notices 
certain Greek philosophers who dissuaded their disciples from en- 
tering into any strong attachments, as unavoidably creating super- 
numerary disquietudes, — advice which Cicero reprobates with much 



106 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

eloquence. Melnioth, in adverting to this passage of Cicero, observes 
that Martial has expressed these sentiments of Aristippus and his 
school of Greek philosophers, "in a pretty epigram." He quotes 
the four concluding lines of Martial's epigram, with the following 
version : 

Would'st thou secure thy guarded breast 

From many a tender, anxious pain? 
Let cold indifference, wiser guest, 

From friendship's warmth thy heart restrain. 
Thy joys will thus be less, 'tis true, 

But less will prove thy sorrows too. 

Vincent Bourne, in one of his nineteen epigrams (or short poems), 
translated into English verse by Cowper, has one with a title, Nulli 
te facias nimis sodalem, or as Cowper renders it, Familiarity dan- 
ger oils. Bourne and Cowper describe an old maid at play with her 
cat, who, in the end, scratches her. 



LXXVI. 

NEW FRIENDS. 



If, Fuscus, you have any leisure to bestow on being more 
beloved (for your friendships abound whichever way you 
turn), I petition for a single place among your friends. Do 
not refuse me, because I am new to you, seeing that all 
your old friends were once new. Look, I pray you, only 
into one thing, which is, whether your newly-proposed friend 
is qualified to become an old friend. — Lib. i. Ep. lv. 

The petitioning to be admitted into friendship is not in accord- 
ance with the colder manners of our countrymen ; in other respects 
the above epigram is of universal application. Melmoth, in his Notes 
to Cicero's Treatise on Friendship, observes that " Martial, soliciting 
one of his contemporaries to be admitted into the number of his 
friends, concludes an epigram which he addresses to him for that 



HI.] GENERAL LIFE. 107 

purpose, with a sentiment perfectly agreeable to Cicero's advice." 
Melmoth gives the following poetical version of the above epigram : 

If yet one corner in thy breast 
Remains, good Fuscus, unpossessed, 
(For many a friend, I know, is thine,) 
Give me to boast that corner mine. 
Nor thou the honour'd place I sue 
Refuse to an acquaintance new. 
The oldest friend of all thy store 
Was once, 'tis certain, nothing more. 
It matters not how late the choice, 
If but approved by reason's voice ! 
Then let thy sole inquiry be, 
If thou can'st find such worth in me 
That, constant as the years are roll'd, 
Matures new friendship into old. 

Jeremy Taylor cites this epigram, observing that " an old friend 
is like old wine, which when a man hath drunk he doth not desire 
new, because he saith the old is better : nevertheless, every old friend 
was new once, and if he be worthy, keep the new one till he become 
old." Quoting this epigram in another place, he observes, that "what 
Martial says of friendships he may say of truths." 



LXXVII. 

GIFTS TO FRIENDS. 



A crafty thief may purloin money from a chest; an 
impious flame may destroy paternal Lares; a debtor may 
deny both principal and interest ; land may not yield crops 
in return for the seed scattered upon it ; frauds may be 
practised on a steward entrusted with your household purse : 
the sea may overwhelm ships laden with merchandise. 
Whatever is given to friends is beyond the reach of Fortune ; 



108 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. . [cH. 

the wealth you have bestowed is the only wealth you can 
keep. — Lib. v. Ep. xliii. 

In Dr Johnson's Juvenilia is a Latin translation of three sen- 
tences, which are stated to be inscribed on the monument of John of 
Doncaster : 

"What I gave, that I have ; 

"What I spent, that I had; 

What I left, that I lost. 

In Hearne's Curious Discourses is an epitaph, contributed by 
Camden, on Mr Lambe, a man who deserv r ed well of the City of 
London, by divers charitable deeds, and who framed this epitaph for 
himself : 

As I was, so be ye; 

As I am, ye shall be ; 

That I gave, that I have ; 

That I spent, that I had; 

Thus I end all my cost; 

That I left, that I lost. 

In the same book the following epigraph is contributed : 

Ho ! who lies here 1 

Here lies the old Earl of Devonshire, 

And Maude his wife, that was full dear; 

We lived together fifty-five year. 

What we gave, that we have ; 

What we spent, that we had. 

Thus we sum up all our cost, 

What we left, that we lost. 

In the Port Royal Logic (translated by Baynes), Chapter x., a 
kind of compound propositions, called Exclusives, is treated of, being 
" propositions which indicate that the attribute agrees with one sub- 
ject, and that it agrees with such subject only, and with no others ; 
whence it follows that they contain two different judgments, and are 
consequently compound in meaning. This is expressed in English by 
the word alone, or some other like it (in French, il n'y a que)." An 
example is given from the above epigram of Martial, Quas dederis, 
solas semper habebis opes. 




III.] GENERAL LIFE. 109 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse upon Alms, quotes the last line of 
Martial's epigram as an incentive to charity, comparing man to the 
Lord's steward, and his chest to the Lord's bank. In a Discourse on 
Friendship, in recommending liberality towards friends, he quotes the 
last two lines, 

Extra fortunam est quicquid, donatur amicis; 
Quas dederis, solas semper habebis opes. 

Melmoth, in his notes upon Cicero on Friendship, in adverting to 
a passage in that treatise concerning the precarious tenure of the 
favours of fortune, and neglect of procuring therewith the treasures 
of friendship, observes, "the judicious direction of wealth, as the 
most productive of heartfelt happiness, is that which Cicero has par- 
ticularly pointed out in the present passage ; and if a philosopher 
should not be credited, let a poet support his testimony." After 
quoting the above epigram in the original, Melmoth gives the follow- 
ing poetical version : 

Some felon-hand may steal thy gold away; 

Or flames destructive on thy mansion prey. 

The fraudful debtor may thy loan deny; 

Or blasted fields no more their fruits supply. 

The am'rous steward to adorn his dear, 

With spoils may deck her from thy plunder'd year. 

Thy freighted vessels, ere the port they gain, 

O'erwhelm'd by storms, may sink beneath the main : 

But what thou giv'st a friend for friendship's sake, 

Is the sole wealth which fortune ne'er can take. 



LXXVIIL 
PROCLAIMING OBLIGATIONS. 

The services you have rendered me I do not forget, and 
will always keep them in my mind. How happens it, 
Posthumus, that I am silent? It is because you talk. Do 
I begin to expatiate on your favours, I am told, "I heard 



110 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

all about it from himself." Some things are not handsomely 
performed by two; one person is enough to relate kindness; 
if you wish me to speak, you must remain silent. The 
merit of gifts, however great they be, is lost by the garrulity 
of the giver. — Lib. v. Ep. liii. 

There is a well-known epigram of Prior, in which is lashed the 

identical vice or failing censured by Martial, and which may not 

improbably have been suggested by the above epigram; it may be 

thought very inferior to Martial's, both in good feeling and good 

taste : 

To John I ow'd great obligation, 

But John unhappily thought fit 

To publish it to all the nation ; 

Sure John and I are more than quit. 

Martial's epigram is quoted by Jeremy Taylor in a Discourse on 
the Duties of Friendship, as indicating that kindness to a friend was 
not a fit subject for publication. 



LXXIX. 
ENTERTAINING COMPANION. 

That men of rank take you along with them almost by 
force to their banquets, to porticos, and theatres; and 
that when they meet you they have pleasure in carrying 
you in their vehicles, and going along with you to the same 
baths ; — let not this puff you up with self-satisfaction, Philo- 
musus; all this is because you are entertaining, not because 
you are beloved. — Lib. vn. Ep. lxxv. 

Ben Jonson has thus imitated the above epigram : 

TO MIME. 

That not a pair of friends each other see, 
But the first question is, when one saw thee? 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. Ill 

That there's no journey set or thought upon, 

To Brentford, Hackney, Bow, but thou mak'st one. 

That scarce the town designeth any feast 

To which thou'rt not a week bespoke a guest. 

That still thou art made the supper's flag, the drum, 

The very call to make all others come: 

Think'st thou, Mime! this is great? or that they strive 

Whose noise shall keep thy miming most alive 1 ? 

Whilst thou dost raise some player from 'the grave, 

Out-dance the babion, or outbrast the brave, 

Or, mounted on a stool, thy face doth hit 

On some new gesture that's imputed wit: 

O run not proud of this. Yet take thy due, 

Thou dost out-zany Cokely, Pod; nay Gue, 

And thine own Goryat too; but, would' st thou see, 

Men love thee not for this, they laugh at thee. 

Fuller, in his Worthies, writes of Coryat, who was too little 
appreciated as a traveller in his own day, " Sweet-meats and Coryat 
made up the last course at all entertainments. Indeed, he was the 
courtiers' anvil to try their wits upon, and sometimes this anvil 
returned the hammers as hard knocks as it received." 

Macilente, a Dramatis persona, in Ben Jonson's Play of Every 
Man out of his Humour, is described in the Prologue as " one whose 
company is desired of all men, but beloved of none." 



LXXX. 

A MODEL CHARACTER 

If there be one to be numbered among rare friends, 
such as ancient fidelity and ancient fame have signalised; 
one who is imbued with the literature of the Athenian and 
Latian Minerva; one whose goodness is enhanced by sim- 
plicity ; one who is the guardian of rectitude, and the prac- 
tiser of honesty; one who offers no secret prayers to the Gods; 



112 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

one whose reliance is upon the strength of a great mind; — 
I will stake my life, that it is Decianus. — Lib. i. Ep. xl. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on Set Forms of Prayer, quotes 
from the above epigram, the line, Et nihil arcano qui roget ore Deos, 
observing, that "by the law of Moses there were no rules for in- 
structing the Synagogue how to pray. They had not known how to 
have composed an office for the daily service of the temple, without 
danger of asking things needless, vain, or impious : such as were the 
prayers in the Roman closets, that he was a good man who would not 
own them." The same sentiment on secret prayers is expressed by 
Persius, who has therein furnished a motto for the coat of arms of the 
Earls Aylesford, viz. aperto vivere voto. 



LXXXI. 

CHANGES OF CHARACTER. 

Priscus! you often ask me what would be my future 
conduct, if I were made suddenly rich or powerful? Who 
can be competent to judge of his future character under 
such contingencies? Tell me, if you were metamorphosed 
into a lion, what kind of a lion you would be? — Lib. xn. 
Ep. xciv. 

Johnson takes the above epigram for his motto of the 172nd 
Number of the Rambler, with the following version: 

Priscus! you've often ask'd me how I'd live, 
Should Fate at once both wealth and honour give? 
What soul his future conduct can foresee? 
Tell me what sort of lion you would be. 

The Paper contains sagacious reflections on the subject of a change 
of fortune causing a change of manners. Dr Johnson observes, 
that "it is generally agreed that few men are made better by afflu- 
ence or exaltation ; and that the powers of the mind, when they are 
unbounded and expanded by the sunshine of felicity more frequently 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 113 

luxuriate into follies, than blossom into goodness." The Paper con- 
tains a variety of judicious reflections on the effect of a change of 
circumstances upon character. 
The last line of the epigram : 

Die mihi, si fias tu leo, qualis eris: 

is taken by Addison as a motto for the 13th Number of the Spectator , 
not for the purpose of developing its figurative import, but only as a 
peg, on account of its terseness ; the Paper relating to an exhibition 
at the Haymarket Theatre of a contest with a real or sham lion, by 
way of showing, as Addison says, what were the public entertain- 
ments of the politer part of Great Britain. 



LXXXIL 

FAVOURITE OF PROVIDENCE. 

Where the way leads to the towers of Hercules- 
worshipping Tivoli, and the snow-white Albula foams with 
sulphureous streams, the fourth mile-stone marks a country- 
seat and a sacred grove, and pleasure-grounds beloved by 
the Muses. Here once an ancient portico afforded a plea- 
sant shade in summer-time, a portico how nearly the daring 
perpetrator of a novel crime! For suddenly it collapsed, 
and fell just as Regulus was about to be carried under it 
in his chariot drawn with four horses. Forsooth, Fortune 
dreaded our complaints, and felt itself not a match for the 
magnitude of indignation which would have overpowered 
her. Now the accident affords pleasure ; for important 
indeed is the conclusion to be drawn from such a peril: 
the portico, so long as it stood, could not have testified 
the provident care of the Gods. (Stantia non poterant 
tecta probare Deos.) — Lib. i. Ep. xm. 

Several of the letters of Pliny, and several epigrams of Martial 
are upon the subject of Regulus, the contrast of which is not without 
mart. . i 



114 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

edification. The only occasion on which Pliny speaks at all favour- 
ably of Regulus is in mentioning his death, and that is on account of 
his having honoured eloquence: Pliny states that it was Regulus's 
custom to anoint his right or left eye, and to wear a white patch 
over one side or other of his forehead, according as he was to plead 
either for the plaintiff or defendant ; and that he used to consult the 
soothsayers upon the event of every cause in which he was concerned 
as an advocate; all which, Pliny says, proceeded from that high 
veneration which Regulus paid to eloquence. Nevertheless, he adds, 
Regulus did well to depart this life, though he would have done much 
better had he made his exit sooner. 

Melmoth, in a note to his translation of a letter of Pliny, con- 
trasts the character of Regulus as drawn by Pliny and by Martial; 
observing that " poets, especially needy ones, such as we know Martial 
was, are not generally the most faithful painters in this way." 
Melmoth gives the following version of Martial's epigram: 
Where leads the way to Tibur's cooling tow'rs, 
And snow-white Albula sulphureous pours, 
A villa stands, from Rome a little space; 
And every Muse delights to haunt the place. 
Here once a Portic lent her grateful shade; 
Alas! how near to impious guilt betray'd! 
Sudden it fell; what time the steeds convey 
Safe from her nodding walls great Regulus away. 
To crush that head not even fortune dar'd, 
And the world's general indignation fear'd. 
Blest be the ruin, be the danger blest! 
The standing pile had ne'er the Gods confest. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on the Righteous Cause Oppressed, 
quotes the two concluding lines of the above epigram, with a view to 
corroborate St Paul's argument, " For if in this life only we have 
hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." He considers 
the " state of the afflicted godly to be a mercy great in proportion to 
the greatness of that reward which such afflictions come to prove and 
to secure." In a Funeral Sermon on the Lord Primate, he observes, 
" The rebellion brealdng out, the Bishop went to his charge at Deny, 
and, because he was under the defence of walls, that execrable traitor, 
Sir Phelim O'lSTeale, had a snare to bring him to a dishonourable 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 115 

death. For he wrote a letter to the Bishop, in which he pretended 
intelligence between them, and desired that, according to their former 
agreement, such a gate should be delivered to him. The messenger 
was not advised to be cautious, nor was he at all instructed in the 
art of secrecy; for it was intended that he should be intercepted, 
searched, and hanged for aught was cared : but the arrow was shot 
against the Bishop, that he might be accused of base conspiracy, and 
die with shame and dishonour. However, here God manifested his 
mighty care of his servants; he was pleased to send into the heart of 
the messenger such an affrightment, that he ran away with the letter, 
and never durst come near the town to deliver it. Nothing could 
prove how dear that sacred life was to God as his rescue from such a 
design. Stantia non poterant tecta probare fieos" 



LXXXIII. 

PHYSIOGNOMY. 



Red hair, black face, short legs, blear eyes, Zoilus, with 
these, if you are good, you are a standing marvel. — Lib. xn. 
Ep. LIV. 

Addison, in the 86th number of the Spectator, writes, "Those 
who have established physiognomy into an art, and laid down rules 
for judging men's tempers by their faces, have regarded the features 
much more than the air. Martial has a pretty epigram on this sub- 
ject." He then quotes the above epigram with the following version : 

Thy beard and head are of a different dye ; 
Short of one foot, distorted in an eye: 
With all these tokens of a knave complete, 
Should' st thou be honest, thou'rt a devilish cheat. 

The Paper contains excellent remarks on " a man giving the lie 
to his face," which Addison illustrates by the example of Socrates, 
whom a physiognomist pronounced to be the "most libidinous and 
drunken old fellow he had ever met with in the course of his whole 



116 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

life;" whereupon Socrates affirmed that he had been naturally in- 
clined to the vices imputed, but that he had conquered his dis- 
positions to them by the dictates of philosophy. The Paper concludes 
with cautions against giving too much credit to a man's outward 
appearance, and a reference is made to Dr More's Ethics, in which an 
inclination to take a prejudice against a man on account of his looks 
is reckoned among the smaller vices in morality, and a name is given 
to it of Prosopolepsia, 



LXXXIV. 

LOVED, WHEN UNSEEN. 

You are pleasing when you are touched, you are pleasing 
when you are heard; if you were not seen, you would be 
altogether pleasing. The sight of you destroys all pleasure. — 
Lib. vii. Ep. c. 

Steele, in the 52nd number of the Spectator, writes of a proposal 
of marriage between the author of the Paper and one Hecatissa, " I 
believe I shall set my heart upon her, and think never the worse 
of my mistress because a smart fellow, as he thought himself, writ 
against her; it does but the more recommend her to me. At the 
same time I cannot but discover that his malice is stolen from 
Martial. 

Tacta places, audita places, si non videare, 
Tota places : neutro, si videare, places. 

Whilst in the dark on thy soft hand I hung, 
And heard the tempting Siren in thy tongue, 
What flames, what darts, what anguish I endur'd, 
But when the candle enter'd, I was cur'd." 

Howel, in his Familiar Letters, (tern. Jac. I.) writes of a lady, 
" I think Clotho had her fingers smutted in snuffing the candle, when 
she began to spin the thread of that lady's life, and Lachesis frowned 
in twisting it up; but Aglaia, with the rest of the Graces, were in a 
good humour when they formed her inner parts. A blind man is 
fittest to hear her sing ; one would take delight to see her dance, if 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 117 

masked ; and it would please you to discourse with her in the dark, 
for then she is best company, if your imagination can forbear to run 
upon her face. When you marry, I wish you such an inside of a 
wife ; but from such an outward physiognomy the Lord deliver you." 
Mallet writes : 

Nerina's angel-voice delights, 

Nerina's devil-face affrights ; 

How whimsical her Strephon's fate ! 

Condemn'd at once to like and hate. 

But, be she cruel, be she kind, 

Love, make her dumb, or make him blind ! 
Martial advises a lady, better seen than heard, to beware of the 
.ZEdile, Portentum est, quoties ccepit imago 



LXXXV. 

NOT TO BE LIVED WITH, NOB, LIVED WITHOUT. 

Difficult and easy, churlish and pleasing; you are all 
these, and yet one person; there is no living with thee, nor 
without thee {nee tecum possum vivere, nee sine te). — 
Lib. xii. Ep. xlyii. 

Addison, in the 68th number of the Spectator, observes that 
several persons are in some certain periods of their lives inexpressibly 
agreeable, and, in others, as odious and detestable; and writes, "Mar- 
tial has given us a very pretty picture of one of this species in the 
following epigram." He refers to the above epigram of Martial, of 
which he furnishes a poetical version : 

In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow, 
Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow; 
Hast so much wit and mirth, and spleen about thee, 
There is no living with thee, or without thee. 
Garrick's character, as portrayed in Goldsmith's poem called 
Retaliation, may, probably, have been suggested by the above epi- 
gram ; it is, at all events, an illustration of it : 

Our Garrick's a salad ; for in him we see , 
Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree. 



118 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

And again : 

With no reason on earth to go out of his way, 
He turn'd, and he varied fall ten times a day ; 

•X- * * # * * 

He cast off his friends, like a huntsman his pack, 

For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle them back. 

Pope, in a letter to Swift, dated August 22, 1726, writing of 
some cups which Swift had given him, and affecting displeasure at 
his hospitality to the Dean being acknowledged by a present, ex- 
presses himself: "Indeed you are engraven elsewhere than on the 
cups you sent me (with so kind an inscription), and I might throw 
them into the Thames without any injury to the giver. I am not 
pleased with them, but take them very kindly too ; and had I sus- 
pected any such usage from you, I should have enjoyed your company 
less than I really did, for at this rate I may say, Nee tecum possum 
vivere, nee sine te." 

Steele, in a love-letter to the lady whom he afterwards married, 

writes : 

O Love ! 

A thousand torments dwell about thee, 

Yet who would live, to live without thee? 

And Prior : 

Wretched when from thee, vexed when nigh, 

I with thee, or without thee, die. ' 



LXXXVI. 

ANTIPATHY. 



I love you not, Sabidis, I cannot tell why. This only 
can I tell, I love you not. — Lib. i. Ep. xxxiii. 

The following French translation has been given of this well- 
known epigram : 

Je ne vous aime pas, Hylas, 
Je n'en saurois dire la cause, 
Je sais seulement une chose, 
C'est que je ne vous aime pas. 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 119 

The epigram has been introduced into a Parliamentary debate by 
Sheridan, who is reported to have said, " These gentlemen seem as 
if they considered the Ministers, now the drudgery of signing the 
Treaty of Peace is done, as fundi officio, and as if they ought to 
go out; as if one was a mere goose-quill, and the other a stick of 
sealing-wax, which are done with and ought to be thrown under the 
table. Perhaps this capricious dislike cannot be better exemplified 
than by the sentiment expressed in the well-known epigram of Mar- 
tial, which has been thus parodied : 

I do not like thee, Dr Fell, 

The reason why I cannot tell ; 

But this, I'm sure, I know full well, 

I do not like thee, Dr Fell." 
The Jesuit editor finds an equivoke in the expression Non possum 
dicere quare ; he calls the epigram argutum etfelle imbutum. 



LXXXVII. 

PLEASED BY NONE. 



Aulus! you cannot, by any strictness of morals, induce 
Mamercus to speak well of you. You may surpass in piety 
the Curtian brothers, the Nervas in inoffensiveness, the 
Rufini in courtesy, the Marci in probity, the Maurici in 
equity, the Reguli in oratory, the Pauli in jocularity; he 
gnaws everything with his envious teeth (rubiginosis). You, 
perhaps, call Mamercus a malignant man ; I call a man 
whom nobody pleases, a wretch. — Lib. v. Ep. xxix. 

Fielding, in a tract on the Characters of Men, quotes from the 
above epigram the lines, 

Ut bene loquatur, sentiatque Mamercus, 

Efhcere nullis, Aule, moribus possis; 
observing that Isaiah saith, " Woe unto them that call good evil, and 
evil good ;" and Dr Smith, " Detraction is that arrow drawn o\it of 



120 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

the devil's quiver, which is always flying about, and doing exe- 
cution in the dark." The last two lines of the epigram are quoted 
by Jeremy Taylor in a Discourse on the Excellence of the Christian 
Religion, as showing that a peevish man is a self-tormentor. The 
metaphorical expression rubiginosis dentibus is copied literally by Ben 
Jonson in the Prologue to his play, called the Poetaster ; he makes 
Envy command her satellites, " Show your rusty teeth at every word, 
and help to damn the author." 



LXXXVIII. 
NURSERY GOVERNOR. 

You rocked my cradle, Charidemus, you had my youth 
in charge, and were the director of my boyish days. Now 
my napkins look black with the shavings of my beard: 
nevertheless, I have not grown to you. My bailiff dreads 
you, my steward and my whole household is terrified at you : 
you take every kind of liberty, but allow me none. You 
catch up my words and actions, you make comments and 
complaints, you draw sighs, and your anger scarcely allows 
your hand to refrain from a ferule. If I put on a Tyrian 
garment, or anoint my hair, you exclaim, "Your Father 
never did the like." With a contracted brow you number 
my cups of wine, as if they were drawn from a cask in your 
own cellar. Cease : I cannot endure a Cato in my freed-man. 
— Lib, xi. Ep. xl. 

Part of this epigram is the motto of the 84fch number of the Ram- 
bler, with the following version : 

You rock'd my cradle, were my guide 
In youth, still tending to my side. 
But now, dear Sir, my beard is grown; 
Still I'm a child to thee alone. 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 121 

Our steward, butler, cook, and all 

You fright, nay, e'en the very wall ; 

You pry and frown, and growl and chide, 

And scarce will lay the rod aside. 
The Paper contains a lively letter from Myrtilla, a girl passed the 
age of sixteen, who is resolved no longer to be treated as a child, to 
ask advice, or give accounts ; she wishes the Rambler to state "the 
time at which young ladies may judge for themselves, which I am 
sure you cannot but think ought to begin before sixteen; if you are 
inclined to delay it longer, I shall have very little regard for your 
opinion." The letter has a " P. S. Remember I am past sixteen." 



LXXXIX. 

UNSEASONABLE ADVICE. 

I asked Caius to lend me twenty sestertia, a sum which 
could not weigh heavy on him, even if he had been asked 
to give and not to lend ; for he was my old companion, and 
had been fortunate in life ; and his chest can scarcely press 
down his overflowing riches. He replied to me: "You will 
become wealthy if you will take to pleading causes." Caius ! 
give me what I ask for, I do not ask for advice. — Lib. n. 
Ep. xxx. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on Lukewarmness, quotes the line, 

Quod peto da, Cai, non peto consilium. 

Upon which he observes, that " he who gave his friend counsel to 
study the law, when he desired to borrow twenty pounds, was not so 
friendly in his counsel as he was useless in his charity. Spiritual acts 
can cure a spiritual malady; but, if my body needs relief, you cannot 
feed me with diagrams, nor clothe me with Euclid's Elements; you 
must minister a real supply by a corporeal charity to my corporeal 
necessity." 



122 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

xc. 

INDISCRIMINATE PRAISE. 

Callistratus, from unwillingness to distinguish pre- 
eminent merit, praises every one. Who can appear good 
to that person to whom nobody appears bad? — Lib. xn. 
Ep. LXXXII. 

Jeremy Taylor quotes this epigram, and observes upon it, that 
" to give to vice any of the treatments or rewards of virtue is a treble 
mischief. The gift or reward is lost; an injury is done to virtue; 
evil men are encouraged in their evil courses." 

Montaigne, in an Essay on the Rewards of Honour, quotes from 
the above epigram the line Cui malus est nemo, quis bonus esse potest ? 
observing of honour, that it is " un privilege qui tire sa principale 
essence de la rarite, et la vertu mesme." Montaigne's translator ren- 
ders the line quoted by him, 

To whom none seemeth ill, none good can seem. 



XCI. 

AFFECTATION OF REAL POVERTY. 

Cinna wishes to appear poor, and is poor. — Lib. vm. 
Ep. xix. 

The modern uses of the above epigram have been of a literary 
character. Ben Jonson, in his tract which he calls Discoveries, pro- 
poses a question, "What is a poem?" In answer to which he says, 
that "sometimes one verse alone makes a perfect poem;" and he 
adduces, as an instance in point, the verse concerning Cinna's affected, 
and no less real than affected, poverty. 

Addison, in the fourth number of the Whig-Examiner, in which 
he treats of Nonsense, in distinguishing between high and low nonsense, 
observes, "Low nonsense is the talent of a cold phlegmatic temper, that, 






III.] GENERAL LIFE. 123 

in a poor dispirited style, creeps along servilely through darkness and 
confusion. A writer of this complexion gropes his way softly amongst 
self-contradictions, and grovels in absurdities. Pauper videri vult, et 
est pauper. He has neither wit nor sense, and pretends to none." 

Dryden, in his Essay on Dramatic Poetry, adverting to one of the 
authors of his day, writes, " His poetry neither has wit in it, nor 
seems to have it ; like him in Martial, Pauper videri Cinna vult, et 
est pauper" 

Colley Cibber, at the commencement of his Autobiography, depre- 
cates the animadversions of the critics, by an affected confession of his 
literary failings ; he writes that " Sir Critic will say this very confes- 
sion is no more a sign of my modesty than it is a proof of my judg- 
ment ; that, in short, he may roundly tell me" (making a pun and 
false quantity) Pauper videri Cibber vult, et est pauper. 

This poem the laureat Cibber thus translates : 

When humble Cinna cries, I'm poor and low, 
You may believe him — he is really so. 



XCII. 
SUFFICIENT FORTUNE. 

Africanus possesses a hundred thousand sesterces, but 
is always striving by servility to acquire more. Fortune 
gives too much to many, enough to none. — Lib. xn. Ep. x. 

Harrington, Queen Elizabeth's godson, wrote an epigram copied 
from the above one of Martial : 

Fortune, men say, doth give too much to many, 

But yet she never gave enough to any. 
There is a French epigram, in which the discontent of every one 
with his fortune is noticed, and is made the basis of a more pointed 
antithesis than that of Martial : 

L' amour propre est, helas! le plus sot des amours, 
Cependant des erreurs il est la plus commune, 



124 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Quelque puissant qu'on soit en richesse, en credit, 
Quelque mauvais succes qu'ait tant ce qu'on ecrit, 

Kul n'est content de sa fortune, 

Ni mecontent de son esprit. 



XCIII. 
BUY ALL, SELL ALL. 



Castor, you buy all; by which means you will end in 
selling all. — Lib. vn. Ep. xcvu. 

Ben Jonson, in his Discoveries, gives this epigram, Omnia, 
Castor, emis : sic fiet, ut omnia vendas, as an instance of a perfect 
poem "being comprised in a single verse. Dr Hodgson attempted to 
translate the epigram thus : 

Why, Tom, you purchase ev'ry thing! 'tis well; 
Who can deny you'll have the more to sell? 
He adds, " A very poor translation, it must be confessed, as it is far 
from expressing the antithesis of general purchaser and general auc- 
tioneer contained in the original." 

The motto of the 91st Number of the Connoisseur, is, 
Omnia Castor emit, sic net, ut omnia vended 
Of which the following ridiculous paraphrase is given: 
Such bargains purchas'd by his dear, 

Her taste at auctions showing, 
Himself must turn an Auctioneer — 
A going, a going, a going! 

The Paper consists of a letter, in which the writer complains of 
his wife, who " natters herself that she has the art of beating down 
every thing so very low, that she cannot resist the temptation of 

buying such extraordinary pennyworths She is one of those 

prudent good ladies, who will purchase any thing of which they have 
no need, merely because they can have it a bargain." After a variety 
of details illustrative of his wife's mania for bargaining, the writer 
complains that his house has become " a repository for the refuse of 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 125 

sales and auctions;" he proposes to get rid of his wife's purchases by- 
making an auction himself. The Paper concludes with a humorous 
catalogue of the writer's effects that had been bought, to be sold. 



XCIY. 

COMPLICATED YICES. 



Apicius ! you bestowed twice three hundred thousand 
sesterces on your belly ; but, notwithstanding, there remained 
a hundred thousand more at your disposal. In this pre- 
dicament you became alarmed at the danger of wanting 
food and drink ; so you took, for your last draught, a potion 
of poison. I say, Apicius! you were never more gluttonous 
than in your own suicide. — Lib. in. Ep. xxn. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on Sins Mortal and Venial, writes, 
in reference to the above epigram, "And Apicius killing himself 
when he supposed his estate would not maintain his luxury, was not 
only a self-murderer, but a gluttonous person in his death : 

Nil est, Apici, te gulosius factum. 

So that the greatness of sins is in most instances by extension and 
accumulation. He is a greater sinner who sins often in the same 
instance than he who sins seldom; and the same of him who sins 
such sins as are complicated and entangled like the twinings of com- 
bining serpents." 



xcv. 

FEIGNED TEARS. 



Gellia, when she is alone, does not lament the loss of 
her father. If any one be present, her bidden tears gush 



126 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

forth. A person does not grieve who seeks for praise ; his 
is real sorrow who grieves without a witness. — Lib. I. Ep. 
xxxiv. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on Penal Laivs, treats of " Lying 
and deceiving by signs not vocal;" lie instances the dissembling of 
the passion of grief, and he observes, " So did Gellia in the epigram ; 
they are full of tears in company, but are pleased well enough in their 
retirements." And, again, in a Discourse on Ecclesiastical Penance, 
he observes, that " in all inquiries concerning penitential sorrow, we 
must be careful not to take account of our sorrow by the measures of 
sense, but of religion. Indeed, some persons can command their 
tears, as Gellia in the epigram. She could cry when company was 
there to observe her weeping for her father, and so can some orators 
and many hypocrites : they command tears, but sorrow is no more 
to be commanded than hunger." 



XCVI. 
SIMULATED COMPLAINTS. 

C^lius, when he could no longer endure the running 
from place to place during the whole morning (Discursus 
varios, vagumque mane,) and the pride, and the aves (salu- 
tations) of men in power, begins to simulate the gout. To 
give to his assumed complaint an appearance of greater pro- 
bability, he lubricates and bandages his healthy legs, and 
he walks with a hobbling pace. How great is the efficacy 
of care and art in feigning pain ! Cselius has ceased to 
simulate the gout. — Lib. vn. Ep. xxxviii. 

Montaigne, in a chapter of his Essays entitled De ne contrefaire le 
Malade, adducing several curious instances of simulated complaints 
turning out real, such as of a man wearing a patch over one eye in 
order to disguise himself during the proscription of the Triumvirate, 
writes, "II y a un Epigramme en Martial qui est des bons (car il y en 



III. J GENERAL LIFE. 127 

a chez lui de toutes sortes) oil il recite plaisamment Fliistoire de Celius, 
qui pour fuir a faire la cour a quelques grands a Rome, se trouver a 
leur lever, les assister, et les suivre, fit la mine d'avoir la goutte, et 
pour rendre son excuse plus vraisemblable, se faisoit oindre les 
jambes, les avoit envelopees, et contrefaisoit entierement le port, et la 
contenaoce d'un gouteux. En fin la feinte lui fit ce plaisir de le 
rendre tout-a-fait : 

Quantum cura potest et ars doloris! 

Desit fingere Cselius podagram." 

Which his translator renders : 

The power of counterfeiting is so great, 
Cselius has ceas'd the gout to counterfeit. 

Montaigne observes, as to the probability of the story, that idle- 
ness, and the heats of ligatures and plaisters may very well have 
brought some gouty humour upon the dissembler of Martial. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on Sickness Safe and Holy, quotes 
the same two lines quoted by Montaigne from Martial's epigram. He 
writes, " Cselius counterfeited the gout and all* its circumstances and 
pains, its dressings, and arts of remedy, and complaints, till, at last, 
the gout really entered, and spoiled the pageantry. His acts of dis- 
simulation were so witty that they put life and motion into the very 
image of the disease; he made the very picture to sigh and groan. 
We should not counterfeit sickness; for he that is careful of his 
passage into sickness will think himself concerned that he fall not 
into it through a trap-door," 



XCVII. 

DISINHERITED, BY INHERITING. 

Philomusus! your father made you an allowance at the 
rate of two thousand sestertia for every month ; but fear- 
ing that you would spend it the moment you had it, he 
divided his monthly allowance into daily payments. Your 
father is recently dead, and has left you the whole of his 



128 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

fortune. Surely in doing so he has disinherited you. (Instead 
of a daily stipend, you will not receive a farthing after 
spending your patrimony, which, as might have been antici- 
pated, you have utterly wasted the moment after you ob- 
tained it.) — Lib. in. Ep. x. 

Jeremy Taylor, in his Apples of Sodom, writes, " Philomusus was 
a wild young fellow in Domitian's time ; and he was hard put to it 
to make a large pension to maintain his lust and luxury, and he was 
every month put to beggarly acts to feed his crimes. But when his 
father died and left him all, he disinherited himself, for he spent it 
all, though he knew he was to suffer that trouble always which 
vexed his lustful soul in the frequent periods of his violent want." 

Raderus, a Jesuit, in his excellent edition of Martial, observes of 
this epigram, Quis hoc neget esse argutissimum et elegantissimum 
epigramma? He compares Philomusus to Evangelicus iste noster 
nepos, et porcorum eonviva. 



XCVIII. 

PHYSICIAN TURNED UNDERTAKER. 

Diaulus was lately a physician ; he is now a vespillo 
(whose occupation is with dead bodies). What he does as a 
vespillo, he formerly did as a physician. — Lib. i. Ep. xlviii. 

This epigram is inserted on account of an imitation of it by 
Boileau : 

Paul, ce grand Medecin, l'effroy de son quartier, 
Qui causa plus de maux que la peste et la guerre, 
Est Cure maintenant, et met les gens a terre, 
II n'a point change de metier. 
A French commentator on Boileau thinks that the original is 
better than the copy, for the comparison is exact in Martial; but, in 
Boileau, the verse signifying that Paul caused more evils than war 
or pestilence, under pretence of saying much, says nothing. An epi- 
gram of Martial on an oculist who turned gladiator, is more exact 
still : Fecisti rnedicus, quod fads hoplomaclms. 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 129 

XCIX. 

A PILFERING PHYSICIAN. 

The clinical physician Herodes stole a drinking cup from 
a sick patient : on being detected, he said, Fool, what need 
have you of drink ? — Lib. ix. Ep. xcviii. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on the Power of the Church (writ- 
ten when the writ De Hceretico comburendo was in force), writes 
" He that hath a man in care is not Curator Bonorum, and the phy- 
sician that gives physic to the hody is not master of his wardrobe ; 
thus the epigram derided Herodes, 

Clinicus Herodes trullam subduxerat segro, 
Deprensus dixit, Stulte, quid ergo bibis? 

because when he came to take away his patient's sickness, he took 
away his plate. Though the body be accessory to the soul, it will 
not follow that he who can cut the soul off from the Church, can 
also cut the body off from the commonwealth." 



c. 

KAVING ON N^EVIA. 



Whatever Rufus does, Rufus heeds nothing, unless it 
be Nsevia ; if he be glad, if he weeps, if he be silent, it is 
all expressive of her. He sups, he drinks healths, he asks, 
he denies, he assents ; but, in all, Nsevia is uppermost in 
his speech ; without Nsevia he is mute. He wrote yesterday 
a letter of salutation to his father, and addressed him, " Hail, 
Nsevia, my light ! my divinity ! " Nsevia reads this, and smiles 
with downcast eyes. There are more Nsevias than one in the 
world ; why does your folly turn to raving ? — Lib. i. Ep. lxix. 



MART. 



130 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Funeral Sermon on the Countess of Carbery, 
observes concerning what he calls an " enamel to the beanty of her 
soul," and not less a " reward to the virtues of her lord," (to whom 
the sermon is dedicated,) "That which I still note in her is that 
which I would have an exemplar to all ladies, and to all women : 
she had a love so great for her lord, she was so entirely given up 
to a dear affection, that she thought the same things, loved the same 
loves, hated according to the same enmities, breathed in his soul, 
lived in his presence, languished in his absence, and all that she 
was or did was only for and to her dearest lord;" then, with an 
exchange of genders, Jeremy Taylor quotes, 

Si gaudet, si net, si tacet, hunc loquitur, 
Coenat, propinat, poscit, negat, innuit, unus 
Ncevius est. 

In the 113th number of the Spectator, Sir R. Steele, after giving, 
in the character of the " Spectator," Sir Roger de Coverley's narrative 
concerning his having been in love, thus concludes : " I found my 
friend begin to rave, and insensibly led him towards the house, that 
we might be joined by some other company ; and am convinced 
that the widow is the secret cause of all that inconsistency which 
appears in some parts of my friend's discourse. Though he has so 
much command of himself as not directly to mention her, yet, ac- 
cording to that of Martial, which one knows not how to render 
into English, Bum tacet, hanc loquitur, I shall end this Paper with 
that whole epigram which represents, with much humour, my honest 
friend's condition." After quoting the original epigram (except the 
last two lines), Steele subjoins the following version : 

Let Rufus weep, rejoice, stand, sit, or walk, 
Still he can nothing but of Nasvia talk ; 
Let him eat, drink, ask questions, or dispute, 
Still he must speak of Nsevia, or be mute. 
He writ to his. father, ending with this line, 
"I am, my lovely Nsevia, ever thine." 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 131 

CI. 

UNBECOMING SMILES. 

" Smile, damsel, if you are wise, smile," was, I think, 
the advice of Ovid. But he did not say this to every damsel, 
and least of all to you who are no longer a damsel. You 
have, it is true, Maximina, three teeth, but they are mani- 
festly pitchy, and like box-wood ; wherefore, if you consult 
your looking-glass, or me, you ought to be as much afraid 
of a smile as Spanius is of the wind for his hair, or Priscus 
of a hand soiling his fine dress ; as the chalked Fabulla is 
fearful of the rain, or the certissed (white-leaden) Sabella 
of the sun. Put on the rueful faces of the wife of Priam, 
or Andromache ; avoid reading the mimes of the laughter- 
moving Philistion ; abstain from all cheerful banquets, and 
avoid all witty conversation that may relax the lips into a 
wide smile. You ought to seat yourself by the side of a 
bereaved mother, or of a newly-made widow, or a brother 
inconsolable for a lost brother ; and you ought to have no 
leisure to bestow on any muse but that of tragedy. In short, 
if you will follow my advice, " Weep, damsel, if you are 
wise, weep." — Lib. n. Ep. xli. 

Ben Jonson, in his play of Sejanus, has the following part of 
a dialogue between a Roman lady and her physician : 

Livia. How do I look to-day ? 

Eudemus. Excellent clear, believe it ; this s&mefucus 

Was well laid on. 
Livia. Methiuks, 'tis here not white. 

Eudemus. Lend me your scarlet, lady. 'Tis the Sun 

Hath given some little taint unto the Ceruse. 
Ben Jonson cites, in a note on this passage of his play, two lines 
from the above epigram of Martial, with a slight variation, viz. 

Quse cretata timet Fabulla nimbum, 
Cerussata timet Sabella solem. 

K2 



132 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Respecting the Cerusse, Martial has, in another epigram, 

Sic, qua? nigrior est cadente moro, 
Cerussata sibi placet Lycoris. 

This is quoted by Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on Christian Sim- 
plicity, who observes upon it, " For so the most deformed woman, 
whose girdle no foolish young man will unloose, because she is blacker 
than the falling mulberry, may please herself under a skin of cerusse, 
and call herself fairer than Pharaoh's daughter." 



CIL 

BUILDING AND BESTOWING. 

Do you believe, Pastor, that I ask for wealth to attain the 
objects for which the low and ignorant crowd desire it? viz. 
that a Setine farm should give employment for my spades ; 
that a Tuscan one should resound with the innumerable fet- 
ters of my slaves ; that my round tables of African-wood 
should stand on a hundred elephants' tusks ; that my bed 
should jingle with its golden ornaments ; that no vessels but 
of large crystal should be rubbed by my lips ; that Faler- 
nian wine should darken the snow in my goblets ; that Syrian 
slaves arrayed in Canusian wool should labour at the poles of 
my sedan ; that a crowd of clients should attend me wherever 
I am carried ; that my cup-bearer should eclipse Jove's Gany- 
mede ; that I should ride on a mule, though bespattered with 
mud, in a purple lacerna (upper cloak) ; that a whip, without 
any bridle, should direct my Massylean steed. It is not any 
one of these that I covet, for which I attest the gods above 
and the stars ! What is it, then ? Pastor, I desire to build 
and to bestow (tit donem et cedificem). — Lib. ix. Ep. xxiii. 

The first two lines of this epigram, which incidentally contains 
a curious detail of Roman luxuries, are prefixed to the following 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 133 

poetical petition addressed to Lord Carteret, the Lord Lieutenant of 
Ireland, by Dr Delany, published together with Swift's works. 

Who can be happy — who should wish to live 

And want the god-like happiness to give? 

Ask your own heart, my lord, if this be true, 

Then how unblest am I, how blest are you. 
'Tis true, but doctor, let us waive all that; 

Say, if you had your wish, what you'd be at. 
Excuse me, my good lord — I wont be sounded, 

Nor shall your favour by my wants be bounded. 

My Lord, I challenge nothing as my due, 

Nor is it fit I should prescribe to you. 

My Lord, I wish to pay the debts I owe — 

I'll wish, besides, to build and to bestow. 



cm. 

PLURALITY OF RESIDENCES. 

You possess a house at Esquilise, and one on the hill 
of Diana ; and the street of Patricians amongst its roofs 
reckons yours. From one of your houses you behold the 
temple of Cybele, from another that of Vesta ; you command 
a view both of the ancient and modern capitol. Say, where 
shall I meet with you ? At what place shall I ask for you ? 
Maximus ! he who lives everywhere lives nowhere. — Lib. vn. 
Ep. LXXII. 

Montagne thus applies the above epigram : " L'Ame qui n'a point 
de but estably, elle se perd : car, comme on dit, c'est n'estre en aucun 
lieu que d'estre par tout. 

Quisquis ubique habitat, Maxime, nusquam habitat." 

Montagne enlarges, from his own experience, on the fantastic 
notions which spring up in the mind of a man unoccupied by any 
definite pursuit, nusquam habitans. 



134 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

CIV. 

A HOUSE FOR SHOW. 

You are conspicuous for possessing plantations of laurels, 
of plane-trees, and tall cypresses, and of baths large enough 
for public use. Your lofty portico stands on a hundred co- 
lumns, and the onyx shines under your feet as you walk. 
The swift-footed horse applauds your hippodromon with his 
resounding hoofs. On every side of your mansion there is 
a murmur of falling water. Your Atria are long and ex- 
pansive ; but there are no supper-rooms, no bed-rooms ; how 
admirably you do not dwell ! — Lib. xn. Ep. l. 

The point of the above epigram, which incidentally presents a 
picture of the magnificence of Roman mansions, is an example of a 
questionable species of wit, which operates by surprise, the reader, 
until the end, being led to expect a contrary result to that with 
which he is treated. Several instances of French epigrams similarly 
constructed are noticed in Kaimes's Elements of Criticism. 

It may seem that Ben Jonson had the above epigram in view, 
when concluding his poem on Penshurst, thus : 

Now, Penshurst, they that will proportion thee 

With other edifices, when they see 

Those proud ambitious heaps, and nothing else, 

May say, their Lords have built, but thy Lord dwells. 



cv. 

A NEIGHBOURLESS NEIGHBOUR, 

Novius is my neighbour, and can be reached by my lmnd 
out of my ivindow. Who does not envy me, and suppose that 
I am every hour happy, since I can enjoy the society of my 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 135 

companion now in near junction of residences with me. The 
fact, however, is, that Novius is as far from me as Teren- 
tianus who governs Syene, a province of the Nile. We cannot 
have each other's society so close together. No one in the 
whole city is so near, and no one so far off. One of us 
must migrate to a distance. A person should be a neigh- 
bour or inmate of Novius, who does not wish to see him. — 
— Lib. i. Ep. lxxxvii. 

A passage in the above epigram is referred to by Becker, in his 
Gallics, on the point, whether Roman houses had windows looking 
into the street ; 

Vicinus mens est, manuque tangi 

De nostris Novius potest fenestris. 

The motto of the 77th Number of the Spectator is, 

Non convivere licet, nee urbe tota 

Quisnam est tarn prope, tarn proculque nobis. 

What correspondence can I hold with you, 
Who art so near, and yet so distant too 1 ? 

The Paper is on the subject of Absence of Mind, especially that of 
Will Honeycomb ; it concludes with extracts from Bruyeres' character 
of an Absent Man. 

Jeremy Taylor writes in reference to the Presbyterian doctrine 
concerning the imputation of Adam's sin, " These are the doctrines 
of the Presbyterians, whose face is towards us, but it is over against 
us in this and many other questions of great concernment : 

Nemo est tarn prope, tarn proculque nobis. 
He is nearest to us, and farthest from us." 



136 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

CVI. 

EPITAPH ON GLAUCIAS. 

(I.) 
The well-known freed-youth of Melior has died, and has 
occasioned grief to the whole of Rome. He lies buried under 
this marble tomb, close by the Flaminian way. He was in 
morals pure, in modesty intact, in talents quick, in appear- 
ance fortunate ; the boy had not quite added a year to 
six completed harvests. Traveller ! whosoever thou art that 
weepest at this recital, mayst thou have no other cause for 
weeping l—Lib. vi. Ep. xxviii. 

(ii.) 
Glaucias was made free by Melior at an age when he 
could scarcely comprehend the gift of freedom ; he had been 
no plebeian slave, or of the common shops, but one worthy 
of the regard of his master : he received his freedom for his 
morals and his beauty. Who was more bland in his manners ? 
Who had a more Apollinean face ? Short is the span of life 
for all who are pre-eminent ; rarely among them is found old 
age : whatever you love, take not in it too intense a pleasure. 
Lib. vi. Ep. xxix. 

With regard to the first line of the concluding distich of the last 
epigram, Evelyn, in his Diary (1689), makes mention of a child not 
twelve years old, the son of a Dr Clench, astonishing himself and 
Pepys by his " profound maturity of knowledge." He calls this pro- 
digy "a wonderful child, or angel rather, for he was as beautiful and 
lovely in countenance as in knowledge. I counselled his father not 
to set his heart too much on this jewel : 

Immodicis brevis est eetas, et rara senectus." 

Cowley takes the same passage, Immodicis brevis est cetas, et rara 
senectus, as the motto for an elegy on his friend Harvey, which con- 
tains the lines quoted by Curran to Lord Avonmore, beginning : 

Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights ! 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 137 

The same line is applied by Cardan to Kiug Edward VI., in his 
memoirs concerning his royal pupil; he writes, "Alas! how pro- 
phetically did he once repeat to me, Immodicis brevis est cetas, et 
rara senectus." Shakespere has a parallel passage to this notion 
of Martial : 

So wise, so young, they say do ne'er live long. 

The motto of the 38th Number of the Spectator (by Steele) is : 

Cupias non placuisse nimis. 

One would not please too much. 

The Paper is on the subject of affectation, consisting of reflections 

on observing "a great deal of beauty in a very handsome woman, 

and as much wit in an ingenious man, turned into deformity in the 

one, and absurdity in the other, by the mere force of affectation." 

A compliment to Chancellor Cowper is conveyed in illustrating the 

effects of affectation among barristers : " I have seen it make a man 

run from the purpose before a Judge, who was, when at the bar 

himself, so close and logical a pleader, that with all the pomp of 

eloquence in his power, he never spoke a word too much." 

Pelisson and the Count de Bussy had a controversy concerning the 
concluding line of Martial's epigram. Pelisson, who approved of it, 
translated it, " Voulez-vous etre heureux, souhaitez en aimant que ce 
que vous aimez ne soit pas trop aimable." The Count de Bussy con- 
tended that whoever loves wishes that the object of his attachment 
should be amiable to perfection. 

Ben Jonson adverts to the last line of Martial's epigram, in his 
elegy on the death of his first son : 

Farewell, the child of my right hand, and joy; 

My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy: 

Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay, 

Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. 

O, could I lose all father now! for why 

Will man lament the state he should envy? 

To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage, 

And if no other misery, yet age ! 

Pest in soft peace, and ask'd, say here doth lie 

Ben Jonson, his best piece of poetry. 

For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such, 

As what he loves may never like too much. 



138 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

CVII. 
ELEGY ON EROTIOK 

(I.) 
my father, Fronto ! and my mother, Flacilla ! I com- 
mend to you, in the realm below, this damsel, my delight and 
the object of my kisses, lest Erotion be terrified at the dark 
shades, and at the enormous mouth of the dog of Tartarus. 
She would have completed her sixth winter if she had lived 
six days longer. May she continue her sportive ways under 
your reverend patronage, and may she garrulously stammer 
forth my name ! May the turf lie lightly on her delicate 
bones ; you ought not, earth, to be heavy to her ; she 
was not so to thee ! — Lib. v. Ep. xxxv. 

(ii.) 

Damsel, sweeter to me than swans grown to their full 
whiteness, softer than a Calesian lamb, more delicate than 
a shell of the Lucrine lake, one to whom you would not prefer 
the coral of the red sea, nor the polished tooth of the Indian 
elephant, nor the just fallen snow, nor the lily yet untouched 
— whose hair excels the fleece of the Beetle flocks (of a golden 
colour), and the knots of hair twisted by the women of the 
Rhine, and the sparkling gold-dust. Her breath was of the 
rose-gardens of Psestum, of the newly-made honey of Attic 
hives, of amber become odoriferous by friction ; compared 
with whom the peacock is inelegant, the squirrel unamiable, 
the phoenix a bird to be seen in flocks. The ashes of Erotion are 
yet warm in their recent tomb ; she yielded to the avaricious 
law of the fates before she had quite completed her sixth 
year: with her are flown my loves, my joys, my sports; and yet 
my friend Psetus forbids my being sad. He says, Are you not 
ashamed to beat your breast, and tear your hair on account 
of a slave-girl ? "I have buried," he says, " a wife known in 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 139 

society, proud, noble, rich, and, notwithstanding which, as you 
see, I live/' What fortitude can exceed that of Psetus ? He 
has succeeded, by his wife's death, to two hundred thousand 
sesterces, and yet he lives. — Lib. v. Ep. xxxviii. 

The names of Martial's father and mother have been collected 
from the first of the above epigrams by his biographers. The con- 
verse of its conclusion has been made the point of an epigram on 
the architect of Blenheim: 

Lie heavy on him, Earth, for he 
Laid many a heavy stone on thee. 

The second epigram -would appear to be imitated in the following 
lines by Ben Jonson : 

Have you seen but a bright lily grow 
Before rude hands have touch' d it ? 

Have you mark'd but the fall of snow 
Before the soil hath smutch'd it? 

Have you felt the -wool of the beaver ? 
Or swan's down ever? 

Or have smelt o' the bud of the brier? 
Or the nard in the fire? 

Or have tasted the bag of the bee ? 

O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she! 

Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, quotes Martial's epigram, 
as indicating, in its hyperbolical comparisons, symptoms of love-melan- 
choly. His version shows that in his time the popular taste in 
poetry was not very fastidious, as thus, 

To whom confer' d a Peacock's indecent, 
A Squirrel harsh, a Phoenix too frequent. 



140 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

CVIII. 

ELEGY ON ALCIMUS. 

Alcimus ! whom the soil of Labicana covers with its light 
turf, and who wast snatched from thy master whilst in rising 
youth, receive not the nodding weights of Parian marble, 
which futile labour dedicates to ashes, and which themselves 
must crumble and decay; but accept the slender box-trees, 
and the dark shades of the palm, and the grass moistened 
with my tears. Take these, dear boy, for the monuments of 
my sorrow ; these may confer on you lasting honour. When 
Lachesis shall have spun out the thread of my life, I enjoin 
that my ashes shall repose in no other manner. — Lib, i. 
Ep. LXXXIX. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Funeral Sermon on the Countess of Carbery, 
quotes, from the above epigram, the passage : 

Phario nutantia pondera saxo, 
Quae cineri vanus dat ruitura labor. 

Observing, " that every thing finds a grave and a tomb, and the very 
tomb itself dies by the bigness of its pompousness and bravery : it 
becomes as much pliable and unconfined dust as the ashes of the 
sinner or the saint that lay under it, and is now forgotten in his bed 
of darkness." In the same sermon, he makes another quotation from 
Martial's epigram : 

Cum mihi supremos Lachesis perneverit annos : 
Non aliter cineres mando jacere meos. 

As to which passage he says, " She lived as we all should die, and she 
died as I fain would die. I pray God that I may feel the same 
mercies on my death-bed that she felt." 

The literary reader may, perhaps, trace an imitation of the above 
epigram, in part of Pope's Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate 
Lady : 

What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace, 

Nor polished marble emulate thy face; 



III.] GENERAL LIFE. 141 

Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be drest, 
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast ; 
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow. 

Lamb, in a note to his translation of Catullus, says that Martial's 
elegy on Alcimus is clearly composed in imitation of that of Catullus 
upon his brother's grave ; an opinion which may admit of question. 
We are indebted to Lamb for a pretty version of Martial's elegy: 

Dear boy! whom, torn in early youth away, 
The light turf covers in Labicum's way, 
Receive no tomb hewn from the Parian cave 
By useless toil to moulder o'er the grave; 
But box and shady palms shall flourish here, 
And softest herbage green with many a tear. 
Dear boy! these records of my grief receive, 
These simple honours that will bloom and live; 
And be, when Fate has spun my latest line, 
My ashes honour' d, as I honour thine ! 



CHAPTER IV. 
ROMAN LIFE. 



The epigrams of Martial which relate to Roman life were 
probably, in his own time, the most popular part of his books ; 
even now there may be found in them some of the liveliest 
sallies of his satire, wit, and humour ; but, in many instances, 
their application has become undiscoverable, owing to the 
memory of the objects glanced at having perished. In most 
epigrams of this class the temporary nature of the conven- 
tionalities alluded to has been a bar to their modern uses. We 
have not, for instance, with us seats at our theatres appropri- 
ated to peers and members of parliament ; we do not devote 
a portion of each day to public baths ; we do not drink by 
prescribed rules ; our houses are not filled with slaves. Never- 
theless, there are a few of Martial's epigrams upon the present 
subject, in which intelligent modern writers have discovered, 
for the edification and entertainment of their own times, re- 
flections on human nature, which, although superficially diver- 
sified by conventional manners, are as intrinsically applicable 
to the life in England of every day, as to that at Rome in the 
reign of Domitian. The merits of Martial's style and expres- 
sions have also occasioned the epigrams under the present 
head to be applied to various purposes alien to their original 
design. These epigrams have, also, been, in many instances, 
used by Roman antiquaries as the foundation, or in support 



CH. IV.] KOMAN LIFE. 143 

of their conclusions. With regard, indeed, to the private life 
of the Romans, Martial and Pliny should be read together, 
inasmuch as they represent it as regarded by persons dif- 
fering widely in their stations of life, habits and genius. 

One class of modern uses of Martial's epigrams on Roman 
life is scarcely touched upon in the present Chapter, viz. 
the illustrations derived from them by commentators on 
Roman authors, especially Horace, Juvenal, Persius and 
Pliny. To do justice to Martial's utility in this point of view, 
would occupy a great number of pages, and such as would be 
caviare to all but the learned: occasional and brief notices, 
therefore, of uses of this description have been judged all that 
it is expedient to introduce under the head of Roman life. 



CIX. 

CONFLUX OF NATIONS. 



What nation is so secluded, or so barbarous, Caesar ! 
as not to furnish a spectator of your city? Thither flocks 
the inhabitant of Mount Hgemus, once the Thracian abode 
of Orpheus; thither the Sarmatian nourished with the blood 
of horses ; thither he who drinks the water of the Nile where 
the river is first discovered, and he who lives on the remotest 
land's-end that is dashed against by the Ocean. The Arabian 
has hastened, the Sabaeans have not been behind, and the Cili- 
cians have been made wet in our theatres with their own per- 
fumed waters. The Sicambrians have come with their hair 
twisted into a knot, and the Ethiopians with their hair orna- 
mented after a different fashion. Their languages are dif- 
ferent, but there is one sentiment in the mouths of all, viz. 
that of hailing you, Caesar! by the title of the true Father 
of your Country ! — Sped. 3. 






144 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Montagne, in an essay on managed horses, writes that the Scy- 
thians, when they were in scarcity of provisions, used to let their 
horses' blood, which they drank, and sustained themselves by that* 
diet, quoting, 

Venit et epoto Sarmata pastus equo; 
which Montagne's translator renders, 

The Scythian also comes without remorse, 
Having before quaff' d up his bleeding horse. 

Ben Jonson, in his play of Sejanus, writes, 

When I have charged alone into the troops 
Of curVd Sicambrians. 

In a note he quotes, from the above epigram, the line, 
Crinibus in nodum tortis venere Sicambri. 

Milton's commentators have ascribed, apparently with reason, to 
this epigram the germ of the more beautiful tableau of ancient Rome, 
imagined to be sketched by the Tempter on the mount, in the Para- 



Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see 

What conflux issuing forth, or entering in! 

Pretors, proconsuls to their provinces 

Hasting, or on return, in robes of state; 

Lictors and rods the ensigns of their power, 

Legions, and cohorts, turms of horse, and wings; 

Or embassies from regions far remote, 

In various habits on the Appian road, 

Or on the Emilian; some from farthest south, 

Syene, and where the shadow both way falls, 

Meroe, Nilotic isle, and, more to west, 

The realm of Bocchus to the Blackmoor sea; 

From the Asian kings and Parthian among these, 

Prom India, and the golden Chersonese, 

And utmost Indian isle Taprobane, 

Dusk faces, with white silken turbans wreathed; 

From Gallia, Gades, and the British west; 

Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians north 

Beyond Danubius to the Tauric pool. — 

All nations now to Borne obedience pay. 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 145 

ex. 

CRIES OF ROME. 

(10 
You ask why I so often go out of town, to visit the poor 
Lar of my barren Xomentanian villa? There are neither ways 
of thinking nor of resting for a poor man in the city. One 
cannot live for schoolmasters in the day, grinders of corn 
at night, smiths at their forges all the day and night. Here 
a money-changer indolently tosses Xero's rough coins on his 
dirty counter; there a beater of Spanish nuggets belabours 
with a glowing hammer his worn stone. Neither does the 
fanatic crowd of Bellona cease from its clamour; nor the 
talkative mariner, with a picture of his shipwreck suspended 
from his neck ; nor the Jew-boy taught to beg by his mother ; 
nor the blear-eyed hawker of sulphur. Who can enumerate 
the various interruptions of sleep at Rome? As well might 
you cast up the number of hands in the city which strike the 
brazen cymbals when the divided moon is brought down 
from the skies by magical devices. But you, Sparsus, are 
ignorant of all this, who live delicately on the Janiculum; 
whose house, though built on a level, overlooks the highest 
hills; who enjoy the country in the city (rus in urbe), and 
a Roman vine-dresser, and an autumnal vintage not to be 
surpassed on the Falernian mount ; and a course for your car- 
riage included within your own premises ; and profound sleep, 
unbroken by any tongues, and no daylight unless when pur- 
posely admitted. The laughter of the passing crowd arouses 
me ; Rome is at my bedside. Whenever I want to repose from 
weariness, I go to my country villa. — Lib xn. Ep. lvii. 

(ii.) 
What right have you to annoy me, wicked schoolmaster, 
whose head is detested by boys and by girls? The crested 
cocks have not yet broken silence, and already you thunder 

MART. L 



146 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

with scolding and stripes. The brass does not so loudly 
resound on the anvil, when a smith is fitting a lawyer to his 
horse in an equestrian statue of bronze. There is less clamour 
in the amphitheatre when the partizans of a gladiator are 
exulting in his victory. Your neighbours do not ask to sleep 
the whole night, but they complain that they cannot sleep at 
all. Dismiss your scholars, and accept for your silence as 
much money as you get by your noise. — Lib. ix. Ep. lxx. 

The expression Bus in TJrbe has become a household one in Eng- 
land. The cursus intra limen is referred to by Becker as exemplify- 
ing the use of hippodromes in inclosures. Boileau has imitated the 
first of the above epigrams in a poem on the noises of Paris : 

Tout conspire a la fois a troubler mon repos, 
Et je me plains ici du moindre de mes maux. 
Car a peine les coqs, commengant leur ramage, 
Auront de cris aigus frappe le voisinage; 
Qu'un afireux serrurier, laborieux Yulcain, 
Qu'eveillera bien-tost l'ardent soif du gain, 
Avec un fer maudit, qua grand bruit il appreste, 
De cent coups de marteau me va tendre la teste. 

-X- % -X- * 

Je fais pour reposer un effort inutile, 

Ce n'est qu'a prix d'argent qu'on dort en cette ville. 

II faudroit, dans l'enclos d'un vaste logement, 

Avoir loin de la rue un autre appartement. 

Paris est pour un Riche un pais de Cocagne, 

Sans sortir de la ville, il trouve la campagne, 

II peut dans son jardin tout peuple d'arbres verds 

Receler le printems au milieu des hyvers, 

Et foulant le parfum de ses plantes fleuris 

Aller entretenir ses douces reveries; 

Mais moi, grace au destin, qui n'ai ni feu, ni lieu, 

Je me loge oil je puis, et comme il plaist a Dieu. 

Becker, in his Gallus, has composed his description of the cries 
of Rome partly from the first of the above epigrams, but principally 
from one in Martial's first book : he uses the above epigram as an 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 147 

authority for the sellers of sulphur or matches hawking their goods ; 
and the epigram in the first book, for their exchanging them for 
broken glass; from which epigram it also appears that the sellers 
of boiled peas, and of sausages, and the exhibitors of snakes, had their 
share in contributing to Roman noises. 

With regard to the second epigram, it illustrates a passage in 
Juvenal, from which it appears that the Roman lawyers, in order to 
attract clients, used to set up equestrian statues of bronze in the 
vestibules before their houses, as in the instance of the lawyer ^Emi- 
lius, than whom Juvenal says he could plead causes better himself : 

Stat currus aheneus, alti 
Quadrijuges in vestibulis, atque ipse feroci 
Bellatore sedens. 

Becker, in the Excursus to his Gallus on the subject of education, 
refers to the second of the above epigrams, in proof of the unpleasant- 
ness of Roman school-life; observing that Martial, who lived near one 
of those schools, does not say much for the humanity of the ludi 
magistri; he says less for it in another epigram wherein he speaks of 
a schoolmaster's weapons : 

Scuticaque loris horridis Scythse pellis, 
Qua vapulavit Marsyas Celaenius, 
Ferula que tristes, sceptra psedagogorum. 

He may be thought to have had some regard to his own ears, in 
his maxim, cestate pueri si valent, satis discunt. 

Martial's annoyance at the noises of Rome may probably have 
suggested to Ben Jonson the trait of aversion to noises which he 
attributes to Morose, in his play of the Silent Woman, and to molest 
whom he collects all the principal street-noises of his day, viz. fish- 
wives, orange-women, chimney-sweepers, broom-men, costard-mongers, 
smiths, braziers, pewterers, the waits, bearwards. 



148 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 



CXI. 

HORARY OCCUPATIONS. 

(I.) 

The first and second hour of the day comprise the saluters; 
the third exercises the lungs of noisy lawyers ; until the fifth 
Rome is occupied in miscellaneous employments. In the 
sixth, fatigued persons begin to rest (sexta quies lassis) ; in 
the seventh, there is a general cessation from labour. From 
the eighth till the ninth, the oiled palsestrse (the exercitatio, 
followed by a bath) aiford sufficient occupation. The ninth 
hour bids the couches to be made ready for supper. The 
tenth, Euphemus, is the hour for my little books, what time 
you adjust the ambrosial repast, and when good Csesar is 
relaxed by divine nectar held in small cups with his vast 
hand. At this moment let in the jokes : my Thalia is fearful 
of approaching with a frolicsome step the matutine Jupiter. — 
Lib. iv. Ep. viii. 

(ii.) 

Your slave-boy has not yet shouted the fifth hour, and 
yet, Ceecilianus, you make your appearance as my guest; 
when now the sureties in each lawsuit are being put oif till 
to-morrow, and the arena wearies the wild beasts exhibited 
in honour of Flora, Run, Callistus; recall the unwashed 
servants (baths being for the eighth hour); let the couches 
be prepared for supper; sit down, Cseeilianus. You want 
warm water to mix with wine, but the cold water is not yet 
come; the kitchen is chilly, its hearth being still naked of 
wood. Prefer coining earlier; for why do you wait for the 
fifth hour, since you are evidently expecting a late breakfast ? 
(utjentes sero). — Lib. viii. Ep. lxvii. 



IV-] ROMAN LIFE. 149 

(III.) 

That I publish scarce one Book in a year, appears to you, 
learned Potitus, idleness on my part. You might, with more 
justice, wonder that I produce one Book, if you knew how 
whole days sometimes glide away from me. In the evening 
I have to see those friends whom I have saluted in the morn- 
ing and by whom my salutations may be returned (vale for 
ave) ; and to many I offer my congratulations, though I do not 
afford any ground for their congratulating me. Now my 
jewelled ring is busy with stamping seals near Diana's temple 
(on the Aventine hill, far from Martial's house). Now the first 
hour (for salutations), then the fifth (for miscellaneous busi- 
ness), seizes me for its own concerns. Now I am detained by 
a consul or a prgetor, and the crowds of clients accompanying 
them home. Often a poet's recitation is to be heard through a 
whole day ; and you cannot refuse to be a listener with impu- 
nity, if a lawyer ask you, or a grammarian, or a rhetorician. 
Wearied, I take my bath at the tenth hour (the usual hours 
being the eighth in summer and ninth in winter), and then I 
have to look after my hundred farthings (centum quadrantes) ; 
when, Potitus, shall a book be made? — Lib. x. Ep. lxx. 

Antiquarians have made great use of the above epigrams for the 
explanation of the Roman hours, the occupations of a day at Rome, 
and the customary meals, as jentaculum, prandium, ccena. Thus 
with reference to Martial's sexta quies lassis, Becker, in taking his 
Gallus through Rome to meet his carriage outside the city (for it 
is doubtful whether carriages were allowed within the gates), writes : 
" It was just the time when the streets, though always full, presented 
the most motley throng ; for the sixth hour approached, when a gene- 
ral cessation from business commenced, and most people were wont 
to take their morning meal (prandium) : whilst some, therefore, were 
still sedulously engaged in their daily occupations, many of the less 
occupied were already hurrying to places of refreshment." 

Becker notices that it appears from the first of the above epigrams 
that, when an hour is mentioned, the current hour, and not that 



150 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

which, had elapsed, was understood : this had been made a question, 
and, in ancient sun-dials, the hours are divided by means of only 
eleven lines, which have no numbers placed against them; con- 
sequently, if the shadow of the gnomon fell upon the first line, the 
first hour would be already elapsed. 

The ninth hour, that for supper (better answering to the modern 
dinner), Becker reckons would have been 2 hrs. 3 1 min. in summer, 
and 1 hr. 29 min. in winter, at the solstices. He collects from Pliny 
that, in winter, the ccena was an hour later, viz. 2 hrs. 13 min. 20 sec, 
the natural day being divided into twelve equal hours (the night 
being divided otherwise), and the ninth hour being halfway between 
mid-day and sun-set. Martial is speaking only of what are customary 
hours; in another place he mentions a ccena at the tenth hour; and, 
in another, he complains that after being dragged through the mud 
all day in following his Rex's sella, he is obliged to accompany him to 
Agrippa's baths, at the tenth or later hour, when he himself used 
Titus's baths at the other end of the town. 

It is noticed by Becker, that it appears from the second of the 
above epigrams, that the use of calda (warm water) to be mixed with 
wine was not restricted' to the cold weather; as the epigram purports 
to have been written during the Floralia, which festival was cele- 
brated from the 28th of April till the 2nd of May. The Centum 
quadrantes, the Becitations, and the crying of the hours by slaves, 
are illustrative of several ancient authors. Martial tells us that he 
lost a centum quadrantes at a swoop, in consequence of saluting Cseci- 
lianus, one morning, by his name, without adding "my lord" (nee 
dixi, dominum). 






CXII. 

COUNTBY LIFE. 



If I am asked how I pass my time in the country, I have a 
short answer to this question. At daybreak I pray to the 
gods ; I then review my domestics ; next my fields ; I appor- 
tion a fair division of labour among my servants ; afterwards 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 151 

I read, I invoke Apollo, I tire out the Muses: which done, 
I rub my body with oil, and willingly brace it by gentle exer- 
cises ; all this with lightness of heart, and freedom from debt 
to the usurers. I dine, I drink, I sing, I play, I wash, I sup, 
I take rest : when I retire to my couch, a small lamp consumes 
a little olive-oil : the light of this lamp furnishes offerings to 
the nocturnal Muses (Camoenis). — Lib. iv. Ep. xc. 

Pope, in a letter to Mr Cromwell, dated the 18th of March, 1708, 
writes : 

" If you have any curiosity to know in what manner I live, or 
rather, lose a life, Martial will inform you in one line : 

'Prandeo, poto, cano, ludo, lavo, coeno, quiesco. 
'(I dine, I drink, I sing, I play, I read, I sup, I take rest.)' 

Every day with me is literally another yesterday, for it is exactly 
the same. It has the same business, which is poetry, and the same 
pleasure, which is idleness. A man might indeed pass his time much 
better, but I question if any man could pass it much easier. If you 
will visit our shades this spring, which I very much desire, you may, 
perhaps, instruct me to manage my game more wisely ; but at present 
I am satisfied to trifle away my time any way rather than let it 
stick by me ; as shopkeepers are glad to be rid of those books at any 
rate which would otherwise always be lying on their hands. 

" Sir, if you will favour me sometimes with your letters, it will 
be a great satisfaction to me on several accounts ; and in this in par- 
ticular, that it will show me (to my comfort) that even a wise man is 
sometimes very idle ; for so you must needs be, when you can find 
leisure to write to 

" Yours, &c." 

If Martial's epigram may appear, from Pope's letter, to have been 
conducive to literary indolence, it produced a very different effect on 
Sir Thomas Parkyns, Baronet (ancestor of the Lords Kancliffe), who, 
in his treatise on wrestling, called Progymnasmata, published in 1714, 
tells us concerning Martial's epigram, as follows : 

" So soon as this epigram of Martial's became my lesson under 
Dr Busby, at Westminster school, and that I had truly construed 
and exactly parsed every word, as we did all our authors, that they 



152 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

might be the better understood, easier got memoriter and without 
book, for our future benefit ; and I searching in ' Godwin's Roman 
Antiquities ' for the meaning of oleo corpusque frico, I found that 
wrestling was one of the five Olympic games, and that they oiled 
their bodies, not only to make their joints more supple and pliable, 
but that their antagonist might be less capable to take fast hold of 
them. This, with running, leaping, quoiting, and whorle bars, were 
the famous and most celebrated games of Greece, continued with 
great solemnity for five days, in honour of Jupiter Olympius, from 
whence the Romans borrowed their Pentathlum, which was com- 
posed of running, wrestling, leapiDg, throwing, and boxing. Likewise 
it gave me a curiosity, when I found the famous poet Martial, my 
author, was proud of the account he gives of his country life; after 
his orisons to his God, agriculture, and his family business had been 
regarded, and, with his book, he had stirred up his muse, he pre- 
pared himself for this heroic exercise of wrestling, which they always 
performed before their full meal, being their supper, when all exer- 
cises were over, for you never meet with, in that poet, ad prandium, 
but always ad cosnam vocare." 

There is a slight probability of Lord Coke's celebrated appro- 
priation of the hours of a lawyer's day, in three Latin verses, having 
been suggested by Martial's poetical diaries. Lord Coke, like Martial, 
includes in his enumeration, praying, eating and drinking, reading, 
sleeping, and, like him, ends with the Muses; Lord Coke's and the 
above epigram both concluding with the same word Camcenis. In an 
original MS. of Sir W. Jones, in the author's possession, Lord Coke's 
epigram is thus alternatively translated, in Sir W, Jones's hand- 
writing : — 

E. C. 

be six address'd; 

Six hours to sleep allot, to law the same applied; 
The Muses claim the rest. 

Pray four, feast two, the Muse claims all besides. 

Pliny spent his time in a very different way from Martial in the 
country as well as in town: with regard to his country life Pliny 
mentions that when he went to hunt, he always took with him his 
writing materials, being sure of finding Minerva as fond of traversing 
the hills as Diana. 



ROMAN LIFE. 153 

CXIII. 

A RUSTIC VILLA. 

Bassus! the villa of our friend Faustinus is not encompassed 
by an extensive, but ungrateful chanipain, is not fashioned with 
rows of unproductive myrtle-trees, nor with plane-trees that 
support no vines, nor with box cut into every variety of figure : 
but it is delightful because it is pure and simple country. 
Here, Ceres with her abundant stores is closely pressed down in 
every angle of every barn, and many a cask is fragrant with 
the produce of ancient vintages. Here, when Novembers are 
past, and on the verge of winters (briimct), the rough pruning- 
man brings home the ripened grapes ; the fierce bulls low in 
the deep valley; the steers are itching for the fight, before 
yet their foreheads are armed with horns. There is found 
wandering the whole family of the farm-yard, the shrill goose, 
peacocks with their jewelled tails, the bird (flamingo, Lat. 
Phoenicopterus) deriving its name from its red wings, the 
painted partridge, the spotted African fowl, the Colchian 
pheasant, cocks with their harems of Rhodian hens. The tur- 
rets resound with plaudits from the wings of pigeons ; on this 
side the turtle-doves, on the other the ring-doves, respond 
in plaintive notes. The greedy swine folloAV the well-filled 
apron-lap of the bailiffs wife; the tender lamb bleats after 
its mother that is full of milk; the slave-children cluster 
round the cheering hearth, where abundant wood blazes in 
honour of the sacred Lares. The victualler does not grow pale 
for want of healthy exercise, nor, as he might do in the city, 
waste oil in anointing himself for the exercises of the palw- 
stra; but he stretches out the treacherous net for the greedy 
fieldfares, or with a trembling line he drags to land the 
captured fish, or brings home the deer entangled in the toils ; 



154 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

the garden waves its cheerful little shadows ; the boys of the 
neighbourhood are zealous to work at the command of the 
bailiff, not as task imposed by their schoolmasters ; the rustic 
salutators come not empty-handed; one brings white honey 
with its wax, and cheese in the form of a cone made of milk 
from the Sassinian wood; another holds forth slumbering 
dormice; another a kid crying after its shaggy mother; 
another a capon; the grown daughters of honest country- 
men bring eggs in wicker baskets. The neighbours, at the 
conclusion of his day's work, are invited to a supper ; nor does 
a stingy table keep its dainties for the morrow; all are fed 
without exception, and the satisfied servant does not envy 
the intoxicated guest. But you, Bassus! at your villa in the 
suburbs, are in possession of mere famine; and from your 
lofty turret you behold nothing but barren laurels. You are 
indeed secure in this, that you have nothing which Priapus 
need to guard from thieves. You feed your vine-dresser with 
city-bread; and you indolently carry to your painted villa 
vegetables, eggs, chickens, apples, cheese, must (unfermented 
wine). Does this deserve to be called the country? Is it not 
rather a town-house carried to a distance? — Lib. in. Ep. lviii. 

In the fifth scene of Becker's Gallus is a particular description 
both of an ornamental villa after the city fashion, and a rustic villa 
for agricultural purposes. For the details of the rustic villa he has 
borrowed largely from the above epigram of Martial, with slight 
embellishments, as, for instance, instead of the swine following the lap 
of the bailiff's wife, Becker makes her scatter food from the lap of 
her gown to the whole tribe of the poultry-yard that are cackling 
and coaxing round her. 

Pope, in the 173rd Number of the Guardian, writes, "I lately 
took a particular friend of mine to my house in the country, not 
without some apprehension that it would afford little entertainment 
to a man of his polite taste, particularly in architecture and garden- 
ing, who had so long been conversant with all that is beautiful or 
great in either. But it was a pleasant surprise to me to hear him 
often declare, he had found in my little retirement that beauty which 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 155 

he always thought wanting in the most celebrated seats, or, if you 
will, villas, of the nation. This he described to me in those verses 
with which Martial begins one of his epigrams : 

Our friend Faustinus' country-seat I've seen: 
No myrtles placed in rows, and idly green, 
No widow'd platane, nor dipt box-tree there 
The useless soil unprofitably share: 
But simpler nature's hand, with nobler grace, 
Diffuses artless beauties o'er the place. 

There is certainly something in the amiable simplicity of un- 
adorned nature that spreads over the mind a more noble sort of tran- 
quillity, and a loftier sensation of pleasure, than can be raised from 
the nicer scenes of art. This was the taste of the ancients in their 
gardens, as we may discover from the descriptions extant of them." 

After referring to the description of a garden by Yirgil, and to 
Alcinous's garden in Homer, Pope concludes with a burlesque de- 
scription of the practice, in his day, of cutting trees into fantastic 
shapes, of specimens of which he gives a humorous catalogue. 

Pope is scarcely justified in representing the passage he quotes as 
affording a type of Roman gardening. It would seem that Faustinus 
had sunk the vocation of an horticulturist in that of a farmer. 
Martial has left us descriptions of several villas essentially different 
in their character from that of Faustinus. It would appear, from 
Pliny's letters, that gardening among the Romans partook of an 
excess of ornament, the boxes and myrtles with which a garden 
abounded being often cut into a multitude of shapes representing 
men, animals, or inscriptions, whilst the fruit-trees were intermixed 
with obelisks ; garden-walks were perfumed with roses or violets, and 
the Romans were fond of extensive beds of the acanthus. A garden 
sometimes contained a compartment which was designed to represent 
uncultivated country. Horace mentions as a mark of the luxury of 
his day, that the bachelor plane-tree was driving out the elm that 
was serviceable for vines. Martial has an epigram on a boy who put 
his hand into the mouth of a bear cut in box-wood, when he was 
stung to death by an adder, the poet observing that it might have 
been safer for the boy if the bear had been real. 

The 33rd Number of the Connoisseur has, for a motto, the five 
concluding lines of the above epigram, with the following version : 



156 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

A little country box you boast, 
So neat, 'tis cover'd all with dust, 
And nought about it to be seen 
Except a nettle-bed, that's green. 
Your Yilla! rural but the name in, 
So desert it would breed a famine, 
Hither, on Sundays, you repair, 
While heaps of viaDds load the chair, 
With poultry brought from Leadenhall, 
-And cabbage from the huxster's stall. 
'Tis not the country, you must own, 
'Tis only London out of town. 

The Paper is interesting as exhibiting a representation, probably 
somewhat exaggerated, of citizens' boxes and of the habits and tastes 
of the trading community of London, in regard to the enjoyment of 
the country, in the year 1754. 

Several passages in the above epigram of Martial are imitated in 
Ben Jonson's poem on Penshurst, as thus : 

There's none that dwell about them, wish them down, 

But all come in, the farmer and the clown, 

And no one empty-handed, to salute 

Thy Lord and Lady, though they have no suit. 

Some bring a capon, some a bridal cake, 

Some nuts, some apples; some that think they make 

The better cheeses, bring them, or else send 

By their ripe daughters, whom they would commend 

This way to husbands; and whose baskets bear 

An emblem of themselves in plum or pear. 

But what can this (more than express their love) 

Add to thy free provisions, far above 

The need of such? whose liberal board doth flow 

With all that hospitality doth know ! 

Where comes no guest but is allowed to eat 

Without his fear, and of thy Lord's own meat : 

Where the same beer, and bread, and self- same wine 

That is his Lordship's, shall be also thine. 

And I not fain, to sit (as some this day 

At great men's tables), and yet dine away. 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 157 

Here no man tells my cups, nor, standing by 
A waiter, doth my gluttony envy ; 
But gives me what I call, and lets me eat, 
He knows, below, lie shall find plenty of meat ; 
Thy tables hoard not up for the next day. 

Jonson has embellished his picture by the representation of guests 
not partaking of their host's meat; this. kind of meanness he may 
have introduced from numerous epigrams of Martial, and from 
Pliny's letters. It would seem, however, that the practice was 
formerly not unknown in England, as, in the instance of Bishop 
Hall's trencher chaplain, who was not allowed to sit above the salt. 
The Bishop also writes, apparently with allusion to Martial's waiter : 

What though he quaff pure amber in his bowl 
Of March-brew'd wheat, yet slack my thirsting soul 
With palish oat frothing in Boston clay; 
And, if he list, revive his heartless grain 
With some French grape, or pure Canariane: 
When pleasing Bourdeaux falls into his lot, 
Some sourish Bochelle cuts thy thirsting throat. 
What though himself craveth his welcome friend 
With a cool'd pittance from his trenchers' end. 
What though the scornful waiter looks askile, 
And pouts, and frowns, and curseth thee the while, 
And takes his farewell, with a jealous eye 
At every morsel he his last shall see. 
What of all this? Is't not enough to say, 
I din'd at Virro his own board to-day 1 

Jonson's dinner with and, at the same time, away from a great 
man, is borrowed from another epigram of Martial : 

Cur sine te coeno, cum tecum, Pontice, ccenam. 
And the telling of his cups, from another, 

Et numeras nostros adstricta fronte trientes. 



158 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [cH. 



CXIV. 

REX, AND SALUTATIONS. 

I lay snares, I am ashamed of it, but still I lay snares, 
Maximus, for your dinner ; you lay snares to catch another's ; 
in this therefore we are a pair (swrrns ergo pares) ; I go in a 
morning to perform my salutation to you ; you are reported 
to have left home just before for the purpose of saluting 
another. We are therefore, in this also, a pair. I walk as 
your attendant, or am the anteambulo (runner before a litter) 
of a puffed-up Rex (patron). You trudge as the subservient 
companion of another Rex. We are therefore, in this, likewise 
a pair. It is mean enough to be a servant ; I do not like to 
be a servant's servant. A Rex ought not to have over him 
another Rex. — Lib. n. Ep. xvm. 

Becker, in the second scene of his Gallus, gives the following 
description of making salutations at Rome, for which he is consider- 
ably indebted to Martial in the above and other epigrams : " The 
vestibulum had already begun to be filled with a multitude of visitors, 
who came to pay their customary morning salutation to their patron. 
The persons who presented themselves not only differed in their 
grades, but also in the motives of their attendance. Citizens of the 
inferior class, who received support from the hand of Gallus ; young 
men of family, who expected to make their fortunes through the 
favourite of Augustus ; poor poets and idlers, who looked to a com- 
pensation for these early attentions, by a place at the board of Gallus, 
or contented themselves with a share of the diurnal sportula; a few 
friends really attached to him from gratitude or affection; and, no 
doubt, some vain fellows, who felt so flattered at having admission to a 
house of distinction, that they disregarded the inconvenience of dancing 
attendance thus early before the door of their dominus or rex, and 
waited impatiently for the moment when they were to be admitted. 
For this was not the only visit of the kind they intended to make 
this morning; and there were some even with whom this made the 
the second or third door visited already." 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 159 

The duties exacted by a Rex from his clients, after their morning 
visit, are thus detailed by Martial in an epigram frequently quoted 
by Becker, in which Martial begs of his Rex to allow of his freedman 
acting as his deputy, alleging that he has a louder voice for crying 
sophos when his Rex is speaking than himself, can make way with 
his elbows through a crowd for his Rex's sedan better, and, in case of 
a quarrel in the streets, is master of a larger vocabulary of abuse. In 
another place Martial complains of the time occupied in following 
and bringing home his Bex; saying that in order to swell the number 
of his gownsmen, the number of his own books was diminished, con- 
cluding that such was the tax paid by a poet who disliked supping at 
home (cum ccenare domi non vult poeta). 

The above epigram has received a modern application in English 
medallic history. One of the remarkable medals struck on the occasion 
of the assassination of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey in furtherance of the 
Popish Plot, relates to the evidence against Green, Hill and Bury, 
who were hanged for murdering that Protestant Magistrate. The 
witnesses for the prosecution stated, that after the murder of Sir 
Edmundbury Godfrey his body was taken from London to Greenberry 
Hill, (a singular coincidence between the names of the locality and of 
the three supposed murderers), and that it was there left in a position 
to favour a belief of his having committed suicide with his own sword ; 
thus representing him as walking up hill after he had, in fact, been 
murdered. The medal, on its face, exhibits St Denys carrying his head 
down hill (from Montmartre to St Denys), agreeably to the legend, 
and bears an inscription " Denys walks down hill carrying his head;" 
whilst, on the reverse, Sir E. Godfrey is represented walking up 
Greenberry-hill, his dead body lying at a distance, with an inscription, 
" Godfrey walks up hill after he is dead." The face also bears an 
inscription " Sumus," and the reverse that of " Ergo pares." 

The last line of this epigram was quoted by Sir Robert Atkyns 
in his tract, wherein he censures the decision of Chief-Justice Herbert 
and his colleagues, on the subject of the Dispensing Power. Chief- 
Justice Herbert had laid down as the first position in his judgment 
on the Dispensing Power, that " The Kings of England are Sovereign 
Princes." Sir R. Atkyns allows that this position is true in one 
sense, viz. that the King is Sovereign as having "no superior on 
earth, according to Martial, Qui Rex est, Begem (Maxime) non habeat; 



160 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

but the King is not a Sovereign in the sense of being exempt from 
the reprisal of law, an absolute King." Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse 
mi the Supreme Civil Power, says that it is " accountable to no man 
whatever it does. Qui Rex est, Reg em, Maxime, non habeat." 

Selden, in his Titles of Honour, mentions that " when Pope Pius 
Y. would have made Cosmo de Medici, Duke of Florence, King of 
the same State, the Emperor Maximilian answered directly to the 
French King's ambassador about it, Non habet Italia Regem nisi 
Ccesarem, according to that of Martial : 

Qui Rex est, Begem, Maxime, non habeat." 



cxv. 

HOW TO LIVE WITHOUT A REX. 

Do not deem me presumptuous that I salute you by 
your simple name, whereas I used formerly to call you 
Dominus and Rex. I have purchased my cap of liberty by 
means of the sale of all my chattels (which enables me to 
live without your sportula). That man ought to have 
Lords and Kings who does not himself possess, but 
covets what Domini and Reges court. Olus ! if you can 
live without a Servus, you can live without a Rex. — 
Lib. 11. Up. lxviii. 

The epigram is thus translated by Cowley: 

That I do you with humble bows no more 
And danger of my naked head adore, 
That I who Lord and Master cried erewhile, 
Salute you in a new and different style 
By your own name, a scandal to you now, 
Think not that I forget myself, or you. 
By loss of all things that all others sought, 
This freedom, and the freeman's hat is bought. 



IV. j ROMAN LIFE. 161 

A Lord and Master no man wants, but he 
Who o'er himself has no authority. 
Who does for honours and for riches strive, 
And follies without which Lords cannot live. 
If thou from Fortune dost no servant crave, 
Believe it, thou no Master need'st to have. 

Shenstone has given the following paraphrase of the last two lines 
of the above epigram, which he quotes, 

Servum si potes, Ole, non habere, 
Et Begem potes, Ole, non habere, 
in an epigram entitled, " The Price of an Equipage," wherein, after 
rather a tedious description of a person who keeps a splendid equip- 
age on the wages of corruption, he concludes : 

Thus does our false ambition rule us, 
Thus pomp delude, and folly fool us, 
To keep a race of fluttering knaves, 
He grows himself the worst of slaves. 

Addison, in his Dialogues on Medals, treats of the representation 
of the figure of Liberty on the reverse of a coin of Galba, which bears 
an inscription Libertas publica, S. G. He observes that the figure of 
Liberty carries, in her left hand, a wand, which the Latins call the 
rudis or vindicta, and, in her right, the Cap of Liberty. He writes 
that he shall quote Martial for the latter ; and, accordingly, adduces 
the commencement of the above epigram with a poetical version : 

By thy plain name though now addrest, 

Though once my King and Lord confest, 

Frown not: with all my goods I buy 

The precious cap of liberty. 



CXVI. 

SEATS AT THE THEATRE. 

(I.) 
The Edict of our Lord and of our God for a dis- 
tribution of seats in the theatre, and by which the Knight 

MART. M 



162 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

enjoys a place that is pure from the mixture of the 
vulgar, is loudly applauded by Phasis dressed and glowing 
in a purple lacerna, and sitting among the Knights. He 
proudly enlarges on the merits of the Edict in a pom- 
pous voice. "At length/' he says, "it is allowed to sit 
more commodiously ; at length the equestrian dignity is 
restored ; we are not pressed or soiled by the mob." Whilst 
Phasis is ranting in this strain, and lolling with his 
back on a cushion, Lectius (the officer whose business it 
was to see that none of inferior rank intruded into the 
seats of the Knights) ordered those purple and arrogant 
laeernce to rise (and the wearer betakes himself to a 
more ignoble part of the theatre). — Lib. v. Ep. viii. 

(ii.) 
Manneius was accustomed to sit in the first row of the 
theatre, before Domitian revived the law appropriating seats 
to the Knights. Twice and a third time being turned out 
by Lectius, he removed his camp, and posted himself close 
behind the Knights Caius and Lucius, and just within the 
select seats. There, for a while, he beheld the games with 
one eye peeping from under a hood. But, again, he was 
ejected, and was compelled, in a state of despondency, to 
pass into the standing way. Nevertheless, here, also, he leant 
over the rail of the last row of Knights, and kneeling un- 
comfortably on one knee, he pretended to the Knights that 
he was sitting among them, and to Lectius, that he was 
standing. — Lib. v. Ep. xiv. 

Selden, in his Titles of Honour, in mentioning the instances of 
the appellation of God being given to princes, observes that " Domi- 
tian and some more Koman emperors were in their styles solemnly 
called Gods; and Martial hath with regard to Domitian, 
Edictum Domini, Deiqne nostri." 

Tertullian, in his Treatise on the Spectacles, observes, " Nam apud 
spectacula et in vid statur" His Cambridge editor, in a note on the 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 163 

word statur, illustrates it by the above epigram of Martial, and par- 
ticularly by the line, 

Equiti sedere; Lectioque se stare. 

Martial was very proud of his seat at the theatre, 
Et sedeo qua te suscitat Oceanus. 



CXVII. 

SLAVES. 



One ringlet belonging to a knot of hair was out of 
its place, not having been properly fixed by the erring 
needle. Lalage perceived this crime in her hand-mirror, 
and, forthwith, avenged it by striking to the ground, with 
the mirror she was holding, her waiting-woman Plecusa, and 
cutting off her hair. Cease, henceforth, Lalage, to employ 
waiting-maids for adorning your locks or touching your 
insane head. Eradicate your hairs with the blood of 
Salamanders, or shave them with a razor, so that your 
looking-glass may always reflect an image worthy of itself 
and yourself.— Lib. n. Ep. lxvi. 

(ii.) 
Why, Ponticus ! do you pretend that some unknown 
person has cut out your slaves tongue? Do not you know 
that the people will tell what he cannot? — Lib. n. Ep. lxxxii. 

(in.) 
A domestic slave, who had been branded on the forehead 
by his master (frontc notatus), preserved the life of that 
master when proscribed, — I say that the master, by his slave's 
act, had his life preserved less signally, than the memory of 
his cruelty.— Lib. in. Ep. xxi. 

m2 



164 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

(IV.) 

Do you behold that man occupying one of the seats of 
the theatre set apart for the Knights, whose hand shines 
with a ring (the appendage of Roman Knighthood) of sar- 
donyx, whose laeerna has been deeply dyed in Tyrian purple, 
and whose toga underneath is bid to surpass in whiteness 
the untrodden snow, whose hair smells of the whole shop 
of the perfumer Marcelianus, whose arms look polished by 
the eradication of every hair; no vulgar latchet fastens his 
shoes, which exhibit a token of nobility in the form of a 
half-moon ; his foot, although it has nothing the matter with 
it, is bound round with scarlet leather. Numerous plasters, 
cut like stars, anoint his forehead. Do you not know who 
this is? Take away his plasters, you will read (i.e. will read 
the letters of a branded slave). — Lib. n. Ep. xxix. 

(V.) 

When you gave your last supper, Rufus! you pretended 
that the hare was underdone, and you called for the whips. 
I suspect that you preferred cutting (scindere) your cook to 
cutting {scindere) your hare. — Lib. in. Ep. xciv. 

(VI.) 

If your slave has committed a fault, do not knock out 
his teeth with your fist; give him a copta from Rhodes to 
eat. — Lib. xiv. Ep. lxviii. (Copta, devices of pastry, very 
hard, and especially so, if brought from a distance; they 
were distributed among guests, to be taken away with 
them.) 

Becker, in the Appendix to his Gallus, when treating of the slave 
family, notices that the maids who dressed the Roman ladies seldom 
escaped from the toilet without being beaten, scratched, or torn and 
pricked with needles; among other examples of which he cites the 
epigram concerning Plecusa, with a parallel passage from Juvenal. 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 165 

He might have adduced several of Martial's epigrams on the sub- 
ject of cutting cooks, or, as in one place it is said, 

Bumpisque coquum, tanquam omnia cruda. 

The letters branded on the foreheads of slaves were called stig- 
mata, and the slaves so disfigured, notati (as in the third of the 
above epigrams), inscripti, literati; as to which Becker observes, 
with reference to the last of the above epigrams, that the stigmata 
remained visible for life, and many who afterwards became free and 
rich tried to hide them with plasters. He also refers to another 
epigram of Martial, in which mention is made of one Heros, who 
practised the effacing of former brandings of slaves {Tristia servorum 
stigmata delet Heros). Ben Jonson appears to have reference to Mar- 
tial's Splenia and his Heros, in the play of the Poetaster : 

I could stamp 
Their foreheads with those deep and public brands, 
That the whole company of barber-surgeons 
Should not take off with all their art and plasters. 

Becker concludes his Excursus on the subject of Roman slavery 
with observing, that whoever wishes to have a more intimate ac- 
quaintance than he has afforded with the dark side of slave-life at 
Rome, may find it in the pages of Juvenal and Martial ; an observa- 
tion which the above epigrams may suffice to confirm. 



CXVIIL 

MANUMISSION. 



That amanuensis, once faithful to my studies, and a 
source of happiness to his master, whose penmanship was 
known also to the Csesars, my Demetrius, has been taken 
away in his first green years. His age was three lustres 
and four harvests (nineteen years). But, that he should 
not descend in the condition of a slave to the Stygian 
shades, when pestilence should have consumed its victim, 



166 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

was my especial care. I remitted to him on his sick bed 
all the rights of ownership; he was worthy to have been 
cured by my gift. Fainting as he was, he felt sensible 
of his reward, and, when on the point of departure for 
the infernal waters in the condition of a freedman, he 
called me by the name of Patron. — Lib. i. Ep. en. 

Barrington, in his Observations on the Ancient Statutes, in treating 
of a statute of Richard II., which enacts that all manumissions made 
during the insurrections of Wat Tyler and Jack Cade to villeins 
should be void, adverts to the strict forms observed by the Romans 
in their manumission of slaves. He observes that " the Romans had 
a custom of enfranchising their slaves just before their death, which, 
I believe, has not been taken notice of by those who have written in 
illustration of the civil law ;" and he quotes the last six lines of the 
above epigram. 

Martial has an epigram on the advantages of a slave, Condylus, 
over his master Caius, a light in which Condylus appears not to have 
viewed the matter : he has also another epigram, showing the reasons 
why a fever would not quit a master to lodge with his slave. 



CXIX. 

A SLAVE-FOOL. 



(i.) 
He was called a natural Fool (morio); I bought him 
as such, for twenty thousand sesterces. Give me back 
my money, Gargilianus, "this fellow is no fool." — Lib. vin. 
Ep. xiii. 

(ii.) 
His stupidity is not from art, but from nature : whoever 
is not over- wise, is wise. — Lib. xiv. Ep. ccx. 

Becker, in his Disquisition on the Slave Family, observes that 
the Moriones were originally Cretins; at least the term compre- 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 167 

hends not only absurdity but deformity ; and Martial (vi. 39) de- 
scribes one with sharp head and long ears, which moved like the ears 
of asses; but their absurdity was the chief point, and the stupider 
they were, the more valuable, as affording most opportunity for 
laughter. He mentions that Seneca kept several moriones in his 
house j and he cites the above epigram in proof of the price of a 
Roman morio. This price may be supposed to have varied with the 
use made of the morio. In one instance Martial mentions that a 
little morio was . the bearer of kisses, whilst wet, between lovers, 
when incommoded by the presence of a de trop. 

The second epigram, of which the last line of the original is, 
Quisquis plus justo non sapit, ille sapit, 
may possibly have suggested Gray's paradox, 

Where ignorance is bliss, 
'Tis folly to be wise. 



cxx. 

SATURNALIA. 



( L ) 

Nothing is more dissolute than the conduct of Chari- 
sianus : he walks about, during the Saturnalia, in his toga, — 
Lib. vi. Ep. xxiv. 

(ii.) 
Now the chap-fallen youth is obliged to relinquish his 
nuts, on his recall to school by his clamorous master; and 
the inebriated gambler is seized in some secret tavern, where 
he is betrayed by the rattling of his dice-box to the scdile 
whom he is beseeching. The whole Saturnalia are past. And 
yet, Galla, you have not sent me any small little gifts, not 
even such as are less than those which you were in the 
habit of sending. Thus, indeed, may my December fly away : 



168 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

but you will not forget that your Saturnalia (season for 
making presents to women) are now approaching, then 
Galla, I will return to you what you have given. (Pay you 
in your own coin.) — Lib. v. Ep. lxxxv. 

(in.) 

To have sent a six-ounce weight, or a gaudy toga worth 
ten scruples of silver, is deemed luxury, and puffed up 
Reges call it a donation. There is, at most, one in Rome 
who rattles gold coins. Be you a friend, Csesar, since 
this sort of people are not; surely no virtue of a Prince, 
can, in its exercise, be sweeter. Long before I have said 
so much, you smile, Germanieus (a name by which Domitian 
liked to be called), with a tacit nose, signifying that my 
advice tends to my own benefit. — Lib. v. Ep. xx. 

Concerning the first of the above epigrams, Jeremy Taylor, in a 
Discourse upon Christ's Sermon on Humility, after quoting Martial's 
lines, observes, " Charisianus walked in his gown in the feast of Saturn ; 
and, when all Rome was let loose in wantonness, he put on the long 
robe of a senator and a severe person, and yet nothing was more las- 
civious than he." Jeremy Taylor further remarks, that " the devil 
Pride prevails sometimes over the spirit of lust." It may be doubted 
whether Jeremy Taylor has apprehended the point of the epigram, by 
which it would seem to be insinuated that, whereas upon occasions of 
ceremony or official business Roman citizens (and not merely senators) 
would be deemed dissolute (lascivi) if they did not wear the toga; 
so a Roman who wore his toga when the rest of his fellow-citizens 
walked about in their tunics, might be called dissolute (as Raderus 
has it, quasi per lasciviam contra morem incederet), not with reference 
to his previous character, but because he did not do as they did at 
Rome. Martial describes Rome, during the Saturnalia, as wearing 
the cap of liberty, pileata Roma ; it appears from this epigram that 
it was also tunicata. 

With regard to the second of the above epigrams, Jeremy Taylor, 
after quoting from Seneca, that pleasure sneaks up and down to 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 169 

baths and sweating-houses, and places that fear the presence of the 
jEdile, writes, "which we learn from Martial, 

Arcana modo raptus a popina, 
^Edilem rogat udiis aleator. 

The dice-player, half drunk, newly snatched from his tavern or ordi- 
nary, beseeches the sedile for money.'" It must be recollected that 
games of mere chance were prohibited by law (vetita legibus aled), 
except only during the Saturnalia. The commentators appear to 
have conceived that the moistened {udus) gambler asked for pardon, 
and not for money : it may be thought that to have asked the aedile 
for money, he must have been very drunk. 

In reference to the third epigram, Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse 
on Conscience, writes, " That determination is to be suspected which 
does apparently serve an interest, and but obscurely serves a pious 

end. 

Utile quod nobis do tibi consilium. 

The propositions of the Church of Rome do evidently serve the ends 

of covetousness and ambition, of power and riches, and therefore stand 

vehemently suspected of contrivance and art, rather than piety, or 

truth of the articles, or designs upon heaven." 

Sir E. Lytton, in his Last Days of Pompeii, makes his ^Edile 

pretend to turn aside his face at a dinner-party in August, when dice 

are introduced out of season. 



CXXI. 

DINNER CHARTS. 



(i.) 
The eighth hour is being announced to the Pharian 
Heifer (Isis) by her bare-headed priests, who, after their 
daily search for Osiris, are at this prescribed time re- 
entering their temple in the Campus Martius. At this 
hour of the day the public baths are of a fit tempera- 
ture for bathing; at the seventh hour they emit too 
much vapour; at the sixth, the heat of Nero's baths is 



170 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

intolerable. Stella, Nepos, Canus, Cerealis, Flaccus, come to 
dine with me! My Sigma (dinner-couch in the fashion of, 
the Greek letter Sigma) has room for seven; we are six, 
add Lupus. My bailiff's wife has brought me mallows to 
aid digestion, and other treasures of the garden; among 
which is the sedative lettuce (lactuca, of which there were 
five sorts) and leek for slicing, mint good for wind on 
the stomach, and stimulative rockets. Slices of eggs shall 
cover anchovies dressed with sauce of rue, and there 
shall be sow's paps moistened with the saline liquor of 
tunny-fish. Then shall be served up a small kid snatched 
from the mouth of a savage wolf, of a size for one 
table, and one supper; cutlets which do not stand in 
need of the carver's knife; beans cooked with herbs; and 
sprouts dressed plain. To these a chicken shall be added, 
and a flitch of bacon which has survived three suppers. 
When your appetites are satiated, I will place before you 
mellow apples. You shall have a* flagon of Nomentanian 
wine without dregs, which was new in the second con- 
sulship of Frontinus. To crown all, there shall be sallies 
of wit without gall, liberty of speech, not creating fear 
on the next morning, and no discussion in which you 
could afterwards wish you had not taken a part. My guest 
may express his candid opinion of Prasinus and Venetus 
(rival factions of the Circus) ; nor shall my cups bring on 
any one a criminal accusation. — Lib. x. Ep. xlviii. 

(ii.) 
Cerealis, you may have a good dinner with me to- 
day; if you are not otherwise engaged, come! You will 
be able to keep the eighth hour, when we will just go to 
the same Baths. You know how near the Baths of Ste- 
phanus are to my house. My bill of fare is as follows: in 
the first course will be served lettuce and leek-strings for 
whets to the appetite; next will come tunny-fish, of an 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 171 

age to be bigger than a small anchovy, and which will 
be smothered with eggs and leaves of rue: neither will 
there be wanting other eggs lightly boiled, nor cheese hard- 
ened on Yelabrian hearths: and there will be olives which 
have felt a Picenian winter. I have said enough for the 
gustus, do you want to know the rest? I will exaggerate, 
if it will tempt you to come: there will be great fishes, 
shell-fish, sow's paps, plump birds both from the poultry- 
yard and from the marshes; — dainties which Stella does 
not place before his guests except on rare festivals. I 
promise more — I will recite nothing, even though you should 
recite to me over and over again your poem of the Giants, 
or your Georgics, second only to those of immortal Virgil. — 
Lib. xi. Ep. liii. 

It may be observed, in explanation of the above epigrams, that, 
according to Becker, a complete Roman ccena consisted of the gustus, 
or whet, the fercula or courses, consisting of the prima, altera, or 
tertia ccena, and the mensce secundce, or desert. Becker derives most 
of these details from an epigram of Martial on a host who gave a 
supper consisting of a multitude of fanciful dishes, all manufactured 
out of gourds. Most Englishmen would agree with Martial's senti- 

o o o 

ment on the gustus, expressed in the terms of the civil law touching 
divorce : 

Dum pinguis mihi turtur erit, lactuca, valebis, 
Et cochleas tibi habe, perdere nolo famem. 

Ben Jonson's Invitation of a Friend to Supper is a close imitation 
of the above epigrams; so close, and so Roman-like, that some of 
the lines may be thought mere imitations, not intended to express 
realities : 

To-night, grave sir, both my poor house and I 

Do equally desire your company: 

Not that we think us worthy such a guest, 

But that your worth will dignify our feast 

With those that come; whose grace may make that seem 

Something, which else would hope for no esteem. 



172 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates 

The entertainment perfect, not the cates. 

Yet shall you have, to rectify your palate, 

An olive, capers, or some better salad 

Ushering the mutton: with a short-legg'd hen, 

If we can get her full of eggs, and then, 

Lemons, and wine for sauce: to these, a coney 

Is not to be despair'd of for our money; 

And, though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks, 

The sky not falling, think we may have larks. 

I'll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come: 

Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which some 

May yet be there; and godwit if we can; 

Knat, rail, and ruff too. Howsoe'er, my man 

Shall read a piece of Yirgil, Tacitus, 

Livy, or of some better book to us, 

Of which we'll speak our minds, amidst our meat; 

And Til profess no verses to repeat: 

To this if aught appear, which I not know of, 

That will the pastry, not my paper, show of. 

Digestive cheese, and fruit there sure will be; 

But that which most doth take my muse and me, 

Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine, 

Which is the Mermaid's now, but shall be mine: 

Of which had Horace or Anacreon tasted, 

Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted. 

Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring, 

Are all but Luther's beer, to this I sing. 

Of this we will sup free, but moderately, 

And we will have no Pooly', or Parrot by; 

Nor shall our cups make any guilty men: 

But at our parting, we will be, as when 

"We innocently met. No simple word, 

That shall be utter'd at our mirthful board, 

Shall make us sad next morning ; or affright 

The liberty, that we'll enjoy to-night. 

Of Prasinus and Venetus, Dry den, in his Essay on Satire, writes, 
after observing that Horace, Juvenal, and Persius have each their par- 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 173 

tisans and favourers, "It is a folly of the same kind with that of the 
Romans themselves in the games of the Circus. The spectators were 
divided in their factions between the Yeneti and the Prasini; some 

were for the charioteer in blue, and some for him in green I am 

now myself on the brink of the same precipice." It would seem that 
Prasinus and Yenetus were poetical personifications of factions in 
the Circus. In the fifth volume of Gibbon, in which the curious his- 
tory of the factions of the Circus is lucidly detailed, it is stated that 
the four colours of the charioteers, — white, red, green, and blue, — 
represented the four seasons, according to some writers, and that 
Venetus was explained by the term cceruleus, which is properly the 
sky reflected in the sea. The colour of the Frasini, whose faction 
was espoused by the emperor, was green. 

Ben Jonson's Leges Convivales, or rules engraven on marble fixed 

over the chimney-piece in his club-room, called the Apollo, at the 

Old Devil Tavern (now Child's banking-house), contain the following: 

Rule xvii. Joci sine felle sunto, which is rendered by Ben Jonson, 

"Let raillery be without malice or heat." 

Rule xxiii. Neminem rewm pocula faciunto, which he thus trans- 
lates : 

Whoever shall publish what's said or what's done, 
Be he banished for ever our assembly divine; 
Let the freedom we take be perverted by none, 
To make any guilty by drinking good wine. 

Rule xviii. Insipida poemata nulla recitantur, which he translates : 

"Dull poems to read let none privilege take." 



CXXII. 

SUPPER OF PERFUME. 

I admit, Fabullus, that you gave good ointment to your 
guests yesterday; but there was a lack of carving. It is a 
ridiculous thing to be well perfumed and to starve. The 
guest who does not sup, but is anointed, appears to me to 
be treated like a corpse. — Lib. m. Ep. xn. 



174 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

This epigram is cited by antiquarians as showing a practice among 
the Romans of anointing their dead. Catullus has an invitation to 
another of the Fabulli, in which he promises rare essences. George 
Lamb, in his poetical translation of Catullus, adopts the nasal 
part of Dr Hodgson's version of this bill of fare, viz. : 

Thou'lt pray the Gods, may touch and taste 
Be quite in smell alone effaced, 
And I become all nose ! 

George Lamb observes, in a note, that " to put off their guests 
with perfume instead of food, seems to have been a practice usual 
with the Fabulli" Thus, he writes, Martial addresses one : 

Faith! your essence was excelling; 

But you gave us nought to eat : 
Nothing tasting, sweetly smelling, 

Is, Fabullus, scarce a treat. 

Let me see a fowl unjointed, 

When your table next is spread; 
Who not feeds, but is anointed, 

Lives like nothing but the dead. 

It may be observed that Martial is very spiteful against the givers 
of bad suppers. He complains of one host, that he served golden 
ornaments on the table instead of meat; of another, that he placed 
before his guests nothing but a boar, and that so small an one that 
it might have been killed by a pigmy ; he desires that this host should 
never more place a boar before him, but should be placed himself 
before a boar in the arena; another is compared by him to an imi- 
tator of Mithridates, who often drank poison, in order to avoid being 
poisoned ; so this host always supped very badly with a view to escape 
dying of hunger. 



CXXIII. 
WALKING SUPPERS. 



Annius has nearly two hundred tables, and a suite of 
servants for each table. The platters run across each other, 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 175 

the dishes are all on the wing {volant). Ye sumptuous 
folk, keep this kind of entertainment for yourselves ; my 
taste is disgusted with a supper that walks. — Lib. vn. 

Ep. XL VII. 

It is not improbable that Pope may have availed himself of this 
epigram in his description of a flying dinner at Timon's Villa (Canons), 
in his Essay on the Use of Riches : 

But, hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call, 
A hundred footsteps scrape the marbled hall. 
Is this a dinner, this a genial room? 
No, 'tis a temple, and a hecatomb. 
So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear 
Sancho's dread Doctor, and his wand, were there, 
In plenty starving, tantalized in state, 
And complaisantly help'd to all I hate. 



CXXIV. 

MIXING WINES. 



Why, Tucca ! do you take pleasure in mixing with old 
Falernian wine must that is stored in Vatican casks? What 
great good have your worst wines done? What great harm 
has been done by your best wines? What you inflict on your 
guests is of little consequence ; but it is a crime to assassinate 
Falernian wine, and to give cruel poison to the juice of the 
Campanian grape. It is very probable that your guests all 
deserve to be put to death ; but so precious a flagon of Faler- 
nian wine did not deserve to die. — Lib. i. Ep. xix. 

The last line of the above epigram is used by Dr Delany as part 
of an inscription on a buried bottle of wine, the disinterring of which 
is commemorated in one of Swift's Birth-day odes to Stella: 



176 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Amphora quae moestum linquis, lsetumque revises 

Arentem dominum, sit tibi terra levis! 
Tu quoque depositum serves, neve opprime, marmor ! 

"Amphora non meruit tarn pretiosa mori" 

" Bottle of Wine ! that lea vest thy master sad, on account of 
parting with you, but wilt gladden his heart when in thirst he meets 
you again, may the earth lie lightly on thee ! And thou, marble, that 
coverest this deposit, afford it protection, without crushing it! So 
precious a bottle does not deserve to die" 

The motto of the 131st Number of the Tatler is taken from the 
above epigram: 

Scelus est jugulare Falernum 
Et dare Campano toxica sseva mero. 

The Paper relates to the practice of manufacturing foreign wines 
from English ingredients, in the year 1710. Becker calls the above 
lines of Martial an excellent epigram, and, on the strength of it, 
mixes, for his Gallus, at an inn, some Vatican wine with old Ealer- 
nian. Martial compares the drinking of Vatican wine out of a 
patera adorned with a serpent by Myron, to drinking the serpent's 
poison. 



cxxv. 

DRINKING NAMES. 



N^evia's health must be drunk in a cup charged with six 
ladles (cyathis), Justina with seven, Lycas with five, Lyde 
with four, Ida with three. Let every mistress be numbered 
in potations of Falernian wine. But as none of them answer 
to their names, do thou visit me, Somnus! — Lib. i. Ep. 

LXXII. 

In the 30th Number of the Spectator, by Steele, there is a letter 
giving an account of an Amorous Club, at Oxford. It is stated that 
the members, in their cups, had recourse to the rules of love among 
the ancients: 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 177 

Nsevia sex cyathis, septem Justina bibatur, 
Six cups to Nsevia, to Justina seven. 

The writer adds " This method of a glass to every letter of a name 
occasioned, the other night, a dispute of some warmth. A young 
student, who is in love with Miss Elizabeth Dimple, was so unrea- 
sonable as to begin her health under the name of Elizabeth; which 
so exasperated the club, that, by common consent, we retrenched it 
to Betty." 

Dr Nash, in his edition of Hudibras, gives the following para- 
phrase of Martial's epigram : 

For every letter drink a glass, 

That spells the name you fancy, 
Take four, if Suky be your lass, 
And five, if it be Nancy. 

Hudibras, when making love to the widow, says to her : 

I'll carve your name on barks of trees, 
With true love-knots and flourishes, 
Drink every letter on't in stum, 
And make it brisk Champagne become. 

Dr Malkin, in his Classical Disquisitions, when adverting to the 
above epigram of Martial, observes that the Delphin editor interprets 
the invocation to Somnus, as that the Romans, " in order to provoke 
sleep, used to toss off the last cup to Mercury, as the God presiding 
over that blessing. But the meaning of the poet seems to be, that 
having no mistress, he will regulate his drinking to five cups, the 
number of letters in the word somne. By this he proposes to declare 
his moderation, the number being exactly a mean between the tallest 
and shortest lady toasted by the rest of the company." Dr Malkin 
mentions a modern humorist, who, having no lady to toast, declared 
that, like Martial, he would drink to somnus, but in the nominative 
case, and, in accordance, filled six successive bumpers. Sir E. Lytton 
makes his dinner-party at Pompeii conclude with a parting cup to 
Mercury. 

Jeremy Taylor, in his Discourse on the House of Feasting, observes, 
that the Romans thought that there was no life after this; or it' 
there were, it was without pleasure; in the shades below theic was 
" no numbering of healths by the numeral letters of Philenium'a name, 

MART. N 



178 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

no fat mullets, oysters of Lucrinus, tender lard of Apulian swine, 
condited bellies of the scarus. They placed themselves in the order 
of beasts and birds, and esteemed their bodies nothing but the recep- 
tacles of flesh and wine, larders, and pantries ; and their soul, a fine 
instrument of pleasure and brisk perception of relishes and gusts, 
reflexions and reduplications of delight." 

Becker, in his Gallus, observes, that we derive almost our only 
information on the ancient custom of drinking by letters, from 
Martial, referring to several of his epigrams on the subject, and 
explaining that cyathus does not mean a cup or glass, but a 
measured ladle for filling them. He illustrates the custom by the 
following scene : " ' Bring larger goblets, Uarinos, that we may 
drink according to the custom of the Greeks.' Larger crystal glasses 
were placed before him. l Pour out for me six cyathi,' cried he. 
1 This cup I drink to you, Gallus. Hail to you ! ' Gallus replied to 
the greeting, and then desired the cyathus to be emptied seven times 
into his goblet. l Let us not forget the absent,' said he. ' Lycoris, 
this goblet I dedicate to you.' ' Well done,' said Bassus, as his cup 
was being filled. ' Now my turn has come. Eight letters form the 
name of my love. Cytheris!' said he, as he drained the glass. Thus 
the toast passed from mouth to . mouth, and finally came to the turn 
of the Perusians. ' I have no love,' said the one on the middle seat, 
' but I will give you a better name, to which let each one empty his 
glass; Caesar Octavianus! hail to him.' 'Hail to him,' responded 
the other Perusian. 'Six cyathi to each, or ten 1 ? What, Gallus and 
Calpurnius! does not the name sound pleasantly to you, that you 
refuse the goblet V e I have no reason for drinking to his welfare,' 
rejoined Gallus, scarcely suppressing his emotion." 

Voltaire, in his Questions sur rUncyclopedie, Article, Boire a la 
Sante, observes of the Romans, " Dans la joie d'un festin on bouvait 
pour celebrer sa maitresse, et non pas pour qu'elle eut une bonne 
sante. Voyez dans Martial : 

Nsevia sex cyathis, septem Justina bibatur. 
Six coups pour Nsevia, sept au moins pour Justine." 

Voltaire thinks the drinking of healths a barbarous custom, inasmuch 
as a person might empty four bottles to a person's health, without 
doing him any good. He quotes an author, who states that it is not 
decorous in Germany to drink to the health of a superior in his 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 179 

presence, upon which he observes, "II y a nioins loin d'un homme 
a un homrae a Londres qua Vienna" Voltaire's notions of drinking 
to the honour of ladies in England may cause a smile : " Les Anglais 
qui se sont piques de renouveller plusieurs coutumes de l'antiquite, 
boivent a l'honneur des dames; c'est ce qu'ils appellent foster; et 
c'est parmi eux un grand sujet de dispute, si une femme est testable 
ou non, si elle est digne qu'on la iosteP 



CXXVI. 

SUPPERS NIGH TOMBS. 

(I.) 

I am called Mica (lit. a crumb); you behold what I am; 
a small supper-parlour. From my window you behold the 
mausoleum of Augustus. Shake up the cushions for a ban- 
quet (lit. break the beds) ; look for the wine, take a garland 
of roses, anoint yourself with nard. God Himself (Domitian, 
who designed the Mica) bids you to remember death.— Lib. n. 
Ep. LIX. 

(II.) 

Fill the double-cyathi cups with Falernian, pour summer- 
snow over the wine, let our hair be wet with unstinted per- 
fume, and our temples be loaded with chaplets of roses. The 
adjacent Mausolea teach us how to live, for they show that 
even gods can die. — Lib. v. Ep. lxv. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on Considerations preparatory to 
Death, says, apparently in allusion to the above epigrams, "Break 
the beds, drink your wine, crown your heads with roses, and besmear 
your curled locks with nard; for God bids you to remember death. 
So the epigrammatist speaks the sense of their drunken principles. 
At all their solemn feasts they would talk of death, to give a zest to 
their present drinking, as knowing the drink that would be poured 

N 2 



180 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

on their graves would be without relish ;" and again, " they threw 
some ashes into their chalices." At a banquet described by Petronius 
there was taken round the tables a skeleton made of silver. 



CXXVII. 

SUPPER-HUNTING AT PORTICOS AND BATHS. 

Selius leaves nothing untried, nothing undared as often 
as he perceives a prospect of being compelled to sup at home. 
He runs to the portico of Europa, and, on his way through the 
Campus Martius, tries to get a supper out of Paulinus, who is 
taking his exercise there, by reiterated comparisons of his feet 
to those of the swift-fooled Achilles. Europa failing him, he 
flies to the Bepta (inclosures originally for voting, latterly filled 
with shops), in which quarter he looks in at the portico of the 
Argonauts, and affects to admire the pictures hung up there 
of Chiron and Jason. Selius's object not being yet attained, 
he joins a crowd thronging to the temples of the Egyptian di- 
vinities, and takes his seat next yours, Heifer ! who lookest 
so sad for the loss of Osiris. He quits this place also without 
result, and resorts to the portico of a 'Hundred Columns;' 
next he goes to the portico of Pompey and its double grove 
(containing four rows of columns, and between each pair a 
grove). He then takes a range of the baths, not despising 
those of Fortunatus or Faustus, nor even the darkness visible 
of those of Gryllus, nor the ^Eolian bleakness of those of 
Lupus. When he has washed himself over and over again 
without finding the gods propitious, he returns to the place 
from which he set out, viz. the box- wood plantations of the 
portico of Europa, now grown warm with the afternoon sun, 
in hopes that he may entrap some friend who has pro- 
tracted his walk till a late hour. A truce to supper-hunting ; 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 181 

I implore you, Bull, thou lascivious carrier ! (the arch-god 
Jupiter, who, in the form of a bull, carried away Europa) both 
in the name of thyself and of thy damsel (Europa, in whose 
portico Selius is supposed to be loitering), do you invite 
Selius to supper ! (for which purpose bull Jupiter would have 
first to kill him.) — Lib. n. Ep. xiv. 

Selius's wanderings are applied, in Canina's Treatise on the 
Vicissitudes of the Eternal City, for the purpose of identifying the 
ancient topography of Borne. The above epigram, is particularly 
noticed as assisting to fix the relative localities of the Septa, the 
Porticos of Europa, of the Hundred Columns, and of Pompey. Nu- 
merous cornices and broken columns have been found on the site 
assigned in the above epigram to Pompey's Portico. The groves 
spoken of above in the Portico of Europa are supposed to have given 
a name to the Church, on the same site, called S. Salvatore in lauro ; 
in the garden of which church four draped figures have been found, 
that are conjectured to have belonged to the decoration of the Portico 
of Europa. The places visited by Selius are situated in the English 
quarter of Pome ; and it appears from various concurrent authorities 
that they were in or adjoining the Campus Martius. 

The worship of Isis by Romans is a prominent circumstance in 
Sir E. Lytton's Last Days of Pompeii. 



CXXVIII. 
SUPPER-HUNTING BY NEWS-TELLING. 

Philomusus ! you are in the habit of earning suppers by 
the art of relating numerous fictions of your own invention, as 
if they were true. You know what schemes king Pacorus is 
contriving in his Arsacian palace : you enumerate the precise 
forces of the Rhenish and Sarmatian armies; you relate the 
message of the Dacian king to the Catti just as if you had 
yourself written his dispatch : you see each victorious laurel 



182 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

before it arrives. You know how often Syene with its dark 
inhabitants is watered by Egyptian showers; you know how 
many ships set sail from the coast of Africa. You know for 
whose head the Julian laurels are growing ; to whom Jupiter 
(at his games instituted by Domitian) destines his own gar- 
lands. Lay aside, Philomusus! arts such as these; you 
shall sup with me to-day ; but on this express condition, that 
you relate no news.— Lib. ix. Ep. xxxvi. 

Martial's epigram is closely imitated by Ben Jonson, in one to 
Captain Hungry: 

Do what you come for, captain, with your news; 

That's sit and eat : do not my ears abuse. 

Tell the gross Dutch those grosser tales of yours, 

How great you were with their two emperours; 

And yet are with their princes: fill them full 

Of your Moravian horse, Venetian bull. 

Tell them, what parts you've ta'en, whence run away, 

What states you've gull'd, and which yet keeps you' in pay. 

Give them your services, and embassies 

In Ireland, Holland, Sweden; pompous lies! 

In Hungary and Poland, Turkey too; 

What at Ligorne, Pome, Plorence you did do: 

And, in some year, all these together heap'd, 

For which there must more sea and land be leap'd, 

If but to be believed you have the hap, 

Than can a flea at twice skip in the map. 
# #_ * * * * 

Keep your names 
Of Hannow, Shieter-huissen, Popenheim, 
Hans-spiegle, Potteinberg, and Boutersheim, 
For your next meal; this you are sure of. Why 
Will you part with them here unthriftily; 
Nay, now you puff, tusk, and draw up your chin, 
Twirl the poor chain you run a-feasting in. — 
Come, be not angry, you are Hungry ; eat : 
Do what you come for, captain; there's your meat. 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 183 

The PauVs-men, who, for want of an invitation to dinner, were 
sometimes constrained to dine with Duke Humfrey (whose monument 
was in an aisle of the cathedral), afforded modern instances of the 
suffering feelingly expressed by Martial, in another epigram, of triste 
domiccenium. 



CXXIX. 

SUPPER-HUNTING BY CRYING SOPHOS. 

That the gowned multitude, whilst you are speaking, ex- 
claim so loudly sophos! (wisely! hear, hear!) is not elicited 
by yourself, but by your eloquent supper. — Lib. vi. Ep. xlviii. 

The motto of the 189th number of the Rambler is, 

Quod tarn grande sophos clamat tibi turba togata, 
Non tu, Pomponi, coena diserta tua est; 
of which the following version is given : 

Resounding plaudits through the crowd have rung; 
Thy treat is eloquent, and not thy tongue. 

The Paper is on the subject of " false claims to recommendation." 
Dr Johnson writes, " Almost every man wastes part of his life in 
attempts to display qualities which he does not possess, and to gain 
applause which he cannot keep; so that scarcely can two persons 
casually meet, but one is offended or diverted by the ostentation of 
the other." 

The above epigram illustrates a letter of Pliny, as translated by 
Melmoth : " The audience that follow them are fit attendance for such 
orators, a low sort of hired mercenaries assembling themselves in the 
middle of a Court of Justice, where the dole is dealt round to them 
as openly as if they were in a dining-room; and at this noble price 
they run from court to court. We stigmatize this sort of people with 
the opprobrious title of table-flatterers; yet the meanness alluded to 
increases every day : it was but yesterday two of my servants, strip- 
lings, were hired for this goodly office at the price of three denarii. 
Upon these honourable terms we fill our benches and gather a circle; 



184 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

and thus it is those unmerciful shouts are raised, when a man who 
stands in the middle of the ring gives the word ; for, you must know, 
those honest fellows who understand nothing of what is said, or if 
they did, could not hear it, would be at a loss, without a signal, how 
to time their applause." 

Martial applies to the exclamation sophos the following epithets, 
tergeminum, inane, insanum; the mobs of Rome, as, according to 
Persius, its parrots, had learnt Greek. 



cxxx. 

LEGACY HUNTING. 



(I.) 
Silanus has lost his only son; do you, Oppianus, omit to 
send presents? cruel calamity! malevolent Parcse! (to 
leave Silanus without your presents). What vulture will de- 
vour this carcase?— Lib. vi. Ep. lxii. 

(ii.) 

You give nothing to me in your lifetime ; you say that you 
will bequeath me something : if you have a grain of sense you 
must perceive, Maro, what I long for. — Lib. xi. Ep. lxviii. 

(in.) 
You are childless and rich, and born when Brutus was 
consul, and have you a belief in true friendships? There are 
indeed such things as true friendships, but they must be those 
you may have formed when you were young and poor : a new 
friend is one who loves you for your death. — Lib. xi. Ep. xlv. 

The motto of the 197th number of the Rambler is taken from the 
first of the above epigrams: 

Cujus vulturis hoc erit cadaver? 
Sav to what vulture's share this carcase falls? 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 185 

The motto of the 198th number of the Rambler is the distich 
which forms the second of the above epigrams, which is thus trans- 
lated : 

You told me, Maro, whilst you live, 

You'd not a single penny give, 
But that whene'er you chance to die, 
You'd leave a handsome legacy: 
You must be mad beyond redress, 
If my next wish you cannot guess. 

The motto of the 162nd number of the Rambler consists of the 
four lines which form the third of the above epigrams, thus rendered: 

What! old, and rich, and childless too, 
And yet believe your friends are true? 
Truth might, perhaps, to those belong, 
To those who lov'd you poor and young; 
But, trust me, for the age you have, 
They'll love you dearly — in your grave. 

The first two numbers of the Rambler above adverted to, are on 
the subject of modern legacy-hunting, and each consists of letters 
signed Captator. The writer observes that " the term legacy hunters, 
however degraded by an ill-compounded appellation in our barbarous 
language, was known in ancient Rome by the sonorous titles of Cap- 
tator and Ifceredipeta" In the third number of the Rambler above 
adverted to, is a lively picture of a character named Thrasybulus, and 
of his agent Yafer. Thrasybulus, when he grew old, had "banquetted 
on flattery, till he could no longer bear the harshness of remonstrance, 
nor the insipidity of truth." Yafer " triumphed over all the efforts 
of Thrasybulus's family, and, continuing to confirm himself in au- 
thority, at the death of his master purchased his estate, and bade 
defiance to inquiry and justice." 



186 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

CXXXI. 

SOCIAL GAMES. 

If your game be the warfare of the insidious robbers, you 
have here your soldier, and your enemy, made out of gems. — 
Lib. xiv. Ep. xx. 

The above epigram was probably an accompaniment to a saturna- 
lian present of a set of table-men for the game of ludus latrunculorum 
(or, little robbers). Becker, in the Appendix to his Gallus, when 
treating of the social games of Rome, mentions two games which were 
at all seasons lawful at Rome, as not depending on chance, viz. the 
ludus latrunculorum, like our chess, or rather a besieging game; and 
the ludus duodecim scriptorum, like backgammon. In illustration of 
the ludus latrunculorum, Becker cites the above epigram of Martial, 
and others respecting pieces made of glass, the different colours of the 
pieces, the feat of one piece being captured between two of a different 
colour, and the names of two persons immortalized by Martial for 
their fame in playing the game. 

In a note appended to Garth's Ovid (ed. 1735), with reference to 
the lines on the Art of Love, 

When she's at cards, or rattling dice she throws, 
Connive at cheats, and generously lose, 
five epigrams from Martial, illustrative of the subject, are quoted; 
in Becker's Excursus, six. Martial's expression nequiore talo has been 
adverted to {supra, Ep. liv.), as to which, Sir E. Lytton introduces 
cogged dice at Pompeii, where some were, in fact, discovered. 



CXXXII. 

MULTIPLIED MARRIAGES. 



In three hundred days, more or less, from the period 
when the Julian law was re-enacted, and modesty was bid 
to re-enter Roman houses, Thelesina was married to a tenth 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 187 

husband. A woman who is so often married is not virtually 
married ; she falls within the purview, if not within the letter, 
of the law. I am less disgusted with a more simple prostitute. 
— Lib. vi. Ep. vii. 

The point of the epigram seems to be, that there was a mode of 
evading the Julian law against adultery, by means of the adulterous 
wife marrying again before any proceeding under the law was insti- 
tuted against her. The Julian law, in fact, contained a proviso that 
if a woman left her husband and married previously to any pro- 
ceeding instituted against her, she could not be prosecuted before the 
adulterer had first been convicted. Some commentators think that 
the epigram indicates the prevalence of divorces; that women mar- 
ried again in order to screen the disgrace of being divorced. The 
epigram is cited with approbation in Murphy's Notes to his Trans- 
lation of Tacitus, where it is introduced as illustrative of that part of 
the Be Moribus Germanorum in which Tacitus states that German 
wives never married a second time. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on the Woman of Samaria, quotes 
from Martial's epigram the lines, 

Quse nubit toties, non nubit: adultera lege est. 
Offendor mcecha simpliciore minus; 
on which he observes, that " instead of returning anger and passion 
to her rudeness, which was commenced upon the interest of a mis- 
taken religion, Christ preached to her the coming of the Messias, 
unlocked the secrets of her heart, let in His grace, and made a foun- 
tain of living water to spring up in her soul which might extinguish 
the impure flames of lust which had set her on fire, burning like hell, 
ever since the death of her fifth husband, she then becoming a con- 
cubine to the sixth." 



CXXXIII. 

WIDOWED STEP-MOTHERS. 



There was a rumour that you were not altogether the 
son-in-law of your mother-in-law during the time that she 



188 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

was the wife of your father. This could not be proved in 
your fathers lifetime : but, now your father is dead, and yet 
your mother-in-law continues to reside in your family house. 
Though Tully were called back from the shades below, and 
though Regulus himself were to defend you, an acquittal 
would be hopeless: for a step-mother who does not cease to 
be one after the death of a father, was never altogether a 
step-mother. — Lib. iv. Ep. xvi. 

In this somewhat obscure epigram Martial seems to regard it as 
conclusive evidence of an illicit intercourse between a mother-in-law 
and a son-in-law, that the former, on becoming a widow, continues 
to reside under the same roof with her son-in-law. The epigram, 
so understood, indicates a great squeamishness resulting from extreme 
corruption; though in this point of view it has not, it is believed, 
been noticed by writers on Roman manners : it is here introduced in 
consequence of the following remarkable use made of it upon a high 
question of divinity. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on the Sin against the Holy Ghost, 
in what sense it is or may be pardonable? writes, "'Impossible' is 
not to be understood in the natural sense, but in the legal and moral. 
There are degrees of impossibility, and therefore they are not all 
absolute and supreme. So, when the law hath condemned a criminal, 
we usually say of him that it is impossible for him to escape, meaning 
that the law is clearly against him : 

Magnus ab infernis revocetur Tullius umbris, 

Et te defendat Regulus ipse licet ; 
Non potes absolvi. 

That is, your cause is lost, you are inexcusable; there is no apology, 
no pleading for you; as here, 'there is left no sacrifice for him.' So 
St John's expression, a 'sin unto death' means, without extreme 
difficulty, and a perfect contradiction to that state in which they are 
for the present lost." 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 189 

CXXXIV. 

BEGGING INCEKDIAKY. 

You bought your house, Tongilianus, for two hundred thou- 
sand sesterces: a calamity too frequent in this city laid it 
in ashes. The contributions on account of your loss, which 
you received from your friends, amounted to ten hundred 
thousand sesterces. I ask, may you not be suspected, Tongi- 
lianus, of having set fire to your own house?— Lib. in. Ep. lii. 

Fuller, in his Worthies, when writing of the tinners of Cornwall, 
notices, " I cannot take my leave of these tinners until I have 
observed a strange practice of them, that, once in seven or eight years, 
they burn down (and that to their great profit) their own melting- 
houses. I remember a merry epigram in Martial of one Tongilian, 
who had his house in Rome casually (reputed) burnt, and gained ten 
times as much by his friends' contributions to his loss : 

Collatum est decies: rogo, non potes ipse videri 
Incendisse tuam, Tongiliane, domum ? 

Gaining tenfold, tell truly, I desire, 
Tongilian! did'st not set thy house on fire? 

But here the tinners avow themselves incendiaries of their own houses ; 
for during the tin's melting in the blowing-house, divers light sparkles 
thereof are, by the forcible wind which the bellows sendeth forth, 
driven up to the thatched roof, on the burning whereof they find so 
much of this light tin in the ashes, as payeth for the new building, 
with a gainful overplus." 

The above epigram is illustrative of a passage in Juvenal, which 
is parodied in Johnson's London, but which, probably, was never 
very applicable to our metropolis: 

See, while he builds, the gaudy vassals come, 
And crowd with sudden wealth the rising dome ; 
The price of boroughs and of souls restore; 
And raise his treasures higher than before. 
Orgilio sees the golden pile aspire, 
And hopes from angry heaven another fire. 



190 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 



cxxxv. 

DANDIES. 

(10 
This man, whom you see walking slowly with vague foot- 
steps, who cuts his way through the middle of the septa 
(where the shops are attracting crowds) in a vest of the colour 
of amethysts; whom my Publius does not surpass in the 
beauty of his laeernce (garment worn over the toga), nor 
Codrus himself, the alpha of the wearers oipcenulm (cloak for 
cold weather) ; who is followed by a crowd of the gowned 
(grex togatus), and of boys ; whose sedan, with its curtains and 
girths, are all new ; — he lately pledged, at the counter of the 
pawnbroker Claudius, a ring for eight nummi, to buy himself 
a supper. — Lib. II. Ep. lvii. 

(ii.) 

Cotilus, you are a bellus homo. The world says this. I 
hear it; but what is a bellus homo? A bellus homo is one who 
arranges his hair in regular curls ; who always smells of bal- 
sams and cinnamon; who sings softly Spanish and Egyptian 
ditties; who moves about his shorn and polished arms in 
various attitudes ; who wastes his whole day among the seats 
of the women ; who is always whispering something in an ear ; 
who is reading letters from various quarters, or writing them 
to as many ; who flies from his neighbour's dress, lest his own 
should be soiled or ruffled ; who knows who loves whom (quam 
quis a/met) ; who runs about to all feasts ; who well knows the 
pedigree of the winning horse, Hirpinus. "What are you 
telling?" say you. This is the definition of a bellus homo. 
Cotilus, a bellus homo is a man, or rather thing, engrossed by 
trifling occupations {res pcetricosa, otherwise pertricosa). — 
Lib. in. Ep. lxiii. 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 191 

The first of the above epigrams may, perhaps, be thought to have 
been imitated by Bishop Hall, in his Satires : 

Seest thou how gaily my young master goes, 

Vaunting himself upon his rising toes 1 

'Tis Euffio : trow'st thou where he din'd to-day *? 

In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humfray. 

His linen collar labyrinthian set, 

Whose thousand double turnings never met. 

His sleeves half hid with elbow pinionings, 

As if he meant to fly with linen wings. 

His hair, French-like, stares on his frighted head, 

One lock, amazon-like dishevelled (love-lock ?) ; 

As if he meant to wear a native cord, 

If chance his fates should him that bane afford. 

Meanwhile, I wonder at so proud a back, 

Whiles th' empty guts loud rumblen for long lack. 

The second of the above epigrams supplied the subject for a Prize 
at Cambridge, viz. Bellus homo Academicus. The prize was obtained 
by G-oodall. It is directed by the deed of foundation, that the Latin 
epigram shall be " after the model of Martial." 

A Bellus Homo is thus portrayed by Becker, in the second scene 
of his Gallus : " Lentulus, young, vain, and wealthy, was the exact 
prototype of those well-dressed, self-sufficient, shallow young men of 
our own day, so graphically described by a modern Trench author, as 
being belles bourses d'etalage : qity a-t-il au fond ? du ride. No one 
dressed with more care, or arranged his hair in more elegant locks, 
or diffused around him such a scent of cassia and cinnamon, nard and 
balsam. No one was better acquainted with the latest news of the 
city: who were betrothed yesterday, who was Caius' newest mistress, 
why Titus had procured a divorce, on whom Nesera had closed her 
doors. The whole business of his day consisted in philandering about 
the toilets of the ladies, or strolling through the colonnades of Pom- 
peius, or the almost completed Septa, humming Alexandrian or Gadi- 
tanian songs, or, at most, in reading or writing a love epistle : in 
short, he was a complete specimen of what the Romans contemp- 
tuously called bellus homo." 



192 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

CXXXVI. 

THE KISSING NUISANCE. 

(10 
It is impossible to escape the kissers; they press, they 

detain, they pursue, they meet They kiss people whether 

they are cold or hot, and even a bridegroom reserving his 
nuptial kiss. It will be of no avail, though you cover your 
head with a hood ; nor will you be safe in a lectica with 
its skins and its curtain, or in a sella that is usually closed : 
the kisser will enter through every chink: not the Consular 
office, nor that of Tribune, nor the threatening fasces, nor 
the rod of the noisy lictor will drive him away ; though you 
are sitting in the elevated tribunal, and are promulgating 
the law from a curule chair, the kisser will ascend as 

high as you The only remedy for this nuisance is to 

choose a friend not addicted to kissing. — Lib. xi. Ep. xcix. 

(ii.) 

It is winter, and horrid December is stiffened, yet you 
have the audacity to detain every one whom you meet with 

a snowy kiss, and so to kiss the whole of Rome If you 

have any sense of propriety, or any shame, put off your 
winter-kisses till the month of April. — Lib. vn. Ep. xciv. 

Becker adverts to both of the above epigrams in the notes to a 
passage in which he is conducting his Gallus through the Roman 
street called Subura : " In consequence of so many obstructions which 
occurred every moment, it was certainly more convenient to allow 
yourself to be carried through the throng reclining on a lectica, 
although it often required very safe bearers, and, now and then, the 
sturdy elbows of the prce-ambulo, to get well through : by this mode 
you had also the advantage of not being incessantly seized by the 
hand, addressed, or even kissed, a custom which, of late, had begun to 
prevail." 



IV,] ROMAN LIFE. 193 

CXXXVII. 

ROMAN BARBERS. 

(I.) 
In this tomb lies Pantagathus, the care and the grief of 
his master, snatched from him, alas ! in early youth ; he was 
skilled in cutting stray hairs with the steel which gently 
touched them, and in giving a polish to bristly cheeks. 
Whence, earth! be placid and light to him; you cannot 
be lighter than was his artistical hand. — Lib. vi. Ep. lii. 

(ii.) 
Part of the hair of your cheeks is cut, part shaved, part 
plucked out ; no one would believe that this was one head. — 
Lib. viii. Ep. xlvii. 

(iii.) 
What would I do, if a barber, when his drawn razor 
is held over my head, should ask me to emancipate him, or to 
give him money? I would promise; for, under the circum- 
stances, it is not a barber who asks, but a robber, and fear is 
imperious. But when his razor should be replaced in its 
curved sheath, I would have his legs and his hands broken. — 
Lib. xi. Ep. lix. 

(IV.) 

During the time that the barber Eutrapelus is making a 
circuit round the face of Lupercus, and is shaving {other- 
wise painting) both cheeks, another beard grows up {altera 
barba subit). — Lib. vn. Ep. lxxxii. 

The Roman barbers and their mysteries have been collected, in a 
great measure from the above and other epigrams of Martial, by Dr 
Smith, in his Dictionary of Antiquities, and by Becker, in the scene 
of a barber's shop, in his G alius; Becker cites the first of the above 
epigrams, as showing that persons of wealth had their own barber 
mart. o 



194 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

among the slave-family, who, if skilful, was much prized: and, in 
illustration of the various modes of shearing Roman beards, he quotes 
the joke, in the second of the above epigrams, of a man who shaved 
his beard three ways. Martial has several severe epigrams against 
bad shavers. In one he concludes : 

"Onus de cunctis animalibus hircus habet cor: 
Barbatus vivit, ne ferat Antiochum. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on the Efficient Causes of Human 
Actions, writes, "Now, because in contracts we intend some advan- 
tage to ourselves, real or imaginary, and, in contracts effected by a 
great fear, we can design none but the avoiding of a greater mischief, 
will the law and right reason wholly attribute it to fear, and, there- 
fore, annul the contract? Martial's case is pertinent to this inquiry:" 
he then quotes the lines, in the original Latin, of the third of the 
above epigrams, observing, "If a barber, when a razor is upon my 
throat, contracts with me for twenty pounds, if I fear that he will 
cut my throat on being denied I promise to him, as to a thief, with 
whom whatsoever contract I make is made in intolerable fear, and 
therefore, thinks Martial, no law of man doth verify it. But Martial, 
as to this instance, was no good casuist ; for, if it be inquired whether 
I am obliged, in conscience, to keep my promise to a thief or bandit, 
I answer that I am." Martial held with Cicero, but the weight of 
authority with modern Moralists seems to be in favour of the Barber. 
See on this subject, Grotius, De Jure Belli et Facis, Lib. n. c. xi. 
translated and edited by Dr Whewell. 

With regard to the last of the above epigrams, Voiture, who was 
a friend of Yaugelas, often rallied him on the excessive pains he took 
in his translation of Quintus Curtius. He told Yaugelas that he 
would never finish ; for whilst he was polishing one part of his book, 
the French language was changing, and that, therefore, he would be 
obliged to alter all the rest ; and he applied to him the above epigram. 
" So," he observed, " altera barba subit." 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 195 

CXXXVIII. 
FALSE HAIR. 

You collect together a few locks of hair that remain on 
your temples, and cover with them the wide expanse of your 
shining bald pate; but no sooner are the locks commanded 
by the wind than they return to their places ; and, as before, 
they gird, on each side, your naked head ; just as if Cidas's 
statue of the old man were placed between two youths having 
luxuriant hair. Will you candidly confess your senility? In 
order that you may appear what you really are, let some 
barber shave the remnant of your hairs ; nothing is more 
disgraceful than a hold man tvearing hair. — Lib. x. Ep. 

LXXXTII. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on Human Laws, observes, "that 
in the days of Clemens Alexandrinus, the Christians thought it a 
very horrid thing to wear false hair, and Calvo turpius est nihil 
comato, said Martial to Marinus, nothing is more deformed, nothing 
more unhandsome. Now, although it be not so in itself, yet when 
the hearts of men are generally against it (for so it was then, though 
it be not so now), if any law had prohibited the wearing of perukes, 
the conscience had been greatly obliged; for the law did lay much 
upon it, even so much as all the evil of the public infamy did amount 
to. If the matter of human laws be in itself trifling and inconsi- 
derate, yet they are binding on conscience, if they forbid on account 
of public disestimation." Domitian is said to have written a treatise 
very elegantly on the subject of preserving the hair, to prevent 
baldness. Martial, in another epigram, compares a plagiarist to a 
Calvus comatus. 



o2 



196 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

CXXXIX. 

HAIR-CUTTING. 

I was unwilling, Polytimus, to violate your hairs (nolue- 
ram, Polytime, tuos violate capillos) ; but, now, I am glad 
that I yielded to your entreaties in doing so. Thus, Pelops ! 
you appeared after your locks had been recently cut, when 
you shone with shortened hair, in order that your intended 
bride might behold your whole ivory shoulder. — Lib. xn. 
Ep. LXXXVI. 

Pope's motto to his Rape of the Lock, is, 

Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos ; 
Sed juvat hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis. 

In which the first two lines of Martial's epigram are preserved, sub- 
stituting only Belinda for Polytime. The latter of these lines is not 
very appropriate to Miss Fermor's case; for the first hair-cutting was 
an event which Martial's slave-boy appears to have wished for sooner 
than his master, whereas the taking of Miss Fermor's lock, (which, the 
poet says, ornamented her ivory neck,) was a decided case of rape. 



CXL. 

DYEING HAIR. 



You simulate youth, Lentinus, with your dyed hairs; so 
suddenly a crow, who were so lately a swan. You do not 
deceive every one: Proserpina knows you for a greybeard, 
she will tear off the masque from your head. — Lib. in. 
Ep. XLIII. 

Addison, in his travels, when speaking of the ancient masks, 
mentions that he saw " the figure of Thalia, the comic Muse, some- 
times with an entire head-piece in her hand, sometimes with about 



IV.] ROMAN LIFE. 197 

half the head, and a little friz, like a tower, running round the edges 
of the face, and, sometimes, with a mask for the face only, like those 
of a modern make. Some of the Italian actors wear, at present, these 
masks for the whole head. I remember formerly I could have no 
notion of that fable in Phaedrus before I had seen the figures of these 
entire head-pieces : 

As wily reynard walk'd the streets at night, 
On a tragedian's mask he chanc'd to light, 
Turning it o'er, he mutter'd with disdain, 
How vast a head is here without a brain. 

I find Madam Dacier has taken notice of this passage in Phsedrus 
upon the same occasion, but not of the following one in Martial, 
which alludes to the same kind of masks: 

Non omnes fallis: scit te Proserpina canum, 
Personam capiti detrahet ilia tuo. 

"Why should'st thou try to hide thyself in youth, 
Impartial Proserpine beholds the truth, 
And laughing at so fond and vain a task, 
Will strip thy hoary noddle of its mask. 

It may be observed that Virgil mentions as a cause of Dido's 
difficulty in dying, that Proserpina had not cut off her hair : 

Nondum illi flavum Proserpina vertice crinem 
Abstulerat, Stygioque caput damnaverat Oreo. 

Jeremy Taylor quotes Martial's epigram in his Discourse on the 
Remedies against the Fear of Death; he observes upon it, that " arts 
of protraction and delaying the significations of old age have the 
effect, that men, in thinking to deceive the world, cozen themselves. 
By representing themselves youthful they continue their vanity till 
Proserpina pulls the peruke from their heads. We cannot deceive 
God and Nature : a coffin is a coffin, though it be covered with a 
pompous veil. They that, three hundred years ago, died unwillingly, 
and stayed death two days or a week, what is their gain 1 Where is 
that week?" 



CHAPTER V. 
ROMAN HISTORY. 






The history of Rome enabled Martial, on a few occasions, 
to soar to a higher eminence on Parnassus than was com- 
patible with the subjects of most of his epigrams : there will 
be found, in the present chapter, some poetry indicative of an 
elevated genius. The personal history of the emperors is not 
confined to the present chapter, but may be collected inciden- 
tally from the others, and more especially from the succeeding 
chapter on Mythology, in which several emperors are made to 
figure as Gods. 

The modern uses applicable to the present head have been 
miscellaneous, though, in general, not differing widely from 
the purport of the original epigrams. When a good modern 
history shall be written of the reigns of Domitian, Nerva, 
and Trajan, much use will undoubtedly be made of various 
passages in Martial, which, for want of such use, must, in the 
present work, be passed over, or only cursorily noticed. For 
the like reason, many adulatory epigrams on the emperors 
are omitted, though not for want of plenty of modern parallel 



CH. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 199 

CXLL 
ABBIA. 

When (chaste) Arria gave to Paetus the sword which she 
had drawn out of her own bosom, she exclaimed (si qua fides), 
"The wound which I have made is not painful. But I am 
pained for that which you will make." — Lib. i. Ep. xiv. 

The poetical versions of this epigram are multitudinous ; the fol- 
lowing are specimens of translations of it, or of its concluding point : 

My wound, said she, but wastes unvalued breath, 
'Tis thine, dear Paetus, gives the sting to death. 

Hill. 

My wound, she said, believe me, does not smart, 
'Tis thine alone, my Paetus, pains my heart. 

Melmoth. 

When Arria to her Paetus gave the steel, 

Which from her bleeding side did newly part; 

From my own stroke, said she, no pain I feel, 
But ah! thy wound will stab me to the heart. 

Sir G. Sedley. 

'Tis done, and, trust me, not a pang succeeds, 
For Arria feels not till her Paetus bleeds. 

Stisted. 

The story of Arria and Paetus is related in the 72nd number of 
the Tatler, in which the above epigram is praised as " one of the best 
transmitted to us from antiquity." According to Dio Cassius, Tacitus, 
Pliny, and other writers, Arria only uttered the expression " Pcete, 
nondoletl" ("Paetus, it is not painful!") In Spence's A necdotes is 
mentioned a group of Arria and Paetus by a Greek artist ; and it is 
observed that the blow which Paetus gave himself is represented as a 
" very bold stroke, and takes away the false idea one might have got 
of him from the well-known epigram of Martial." 

Jortin thought it impossible to make a good epigram on the story. 
He was of opinion that the words Pcete, non dolet ! could not be para- 
phrased without losing much of their beauty. He considered that in 



200 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

the last line of the above epigram was expressed a tenderness and 
fondness which did not well suit with that heroic love so strongly 
marked in Arria's words and behaviour. It would seem that, for 
the purpose of explaining the transaction to his readers, Martial had 
diluted the expression Pcete, non dolet ! in the last line but one of his 
epigram; and, with a like view, in his last line, had expressed what 
might be implied from Arria's three words. 

Montagne, in an essay on the subject of Three Good Women, com- 
mences with an ungallant remark, that good women are not by the 
dozen, as every one knows. He observes of Arria, one of his trio, 
that her action was much more noble in itself than the poet could 
express it : she had in the last gasp of her life no other concern but 
for him, and of dispossessing him of the fear of dying with her. Pliny, 
in one of his letters, relates other intrepid actions by Arria, no less 
heroic than her non dolet ! concluding that the most famous actions 
are not always the most noble. The death of Arria is represented 
in a picture with poetry in the Galerie des Femmes fortes. 

It is remarkable that Pope, who was familiar with Martial, 
should have omitted any reference to the above epigram, when, in a 
letter to Edward Blunt, Esq., he writes, "I think it a fine and natural 
thought, which I lately read in a letter of Montague's giving an 
account of the last words of an intimate friend of his, * Adieu, my 
friend! the pain I feel will soon be over; but I grieve for that you 
are to feel, which is to last you for life.'" 

Gray, who excelled in the exquisite mosaic work of his com- 
positions, may, perhaps appear to have interwoven the sentiment 
which Martial appends to Arria's non dolet ! in an epitaph on Mrs 
Clarke, the grief of whose bereaved husband he depictures. Of her- 
self he writes, 

In agony, in death, resigned, 

She felt the wound she left behind. 



V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 201 

CXLII. 

MUCIUS SC^VOLA. 

The hand of Scsevola, by which he missed the killing of 
Porsena, by mistaking his attendant for him, was thrust by 
him into the flames of an altar. The king, though an enemy, 
could not suffer this marvellous proof of fortitude to be con- 
tinued, but ordered Scaavola to be drawn from the fire, and to 
be set free. The hand which Scsevola could burn in contempt 
of the flames, Porsena could not look upon without emotion. 
The fame and glory of that hand was greater for having been 
deceived ; had it not erred, it had performed a less achieve- 
ment (si non err asset, fecerat ilia minus). — Lib. i. Ep. xxii. 

The epigram has been translated by Fletcher, and by Dr Hodgson, 
late Provost of Eton. The concluding lines of the version by the 
latter are, 

Had it not err'd, that hand had never gain'd 
So great a fame, or done a deed so bold. 

The conclusion of Fletcher's version is, 

The failing hand the greater glory found; 
Had it not err'd, it had been less renown'd. 

Scaliger has an epigram upon the subject, in which he makes 
Mucius disclaim his right hand because it had not proved the hand of 
his country. It was a saying of Home Tooke, concerning intel- 
lectual philosophy, that "he had become better acquainted with 
the country through his having had the good luck sometimes to lose 
his way, observing, si non errasset, fecerat ille minus." — (Sharpe's 
Essays.') 

Dr Malkin, in his Classical Disquisitions, observes that Virgil 
takes no notice of Scaevola among early Roman heroes, and that Livy 
offers an apology for his crime. Sir G. C. Lewis, in his Inquiry into 
the Credibility of early Roman History, gives several curious particu- 
lars concerning Mucius Scsevola : he observes that the assassination of 
an enemy in the manner attempted by Mucins is justified by Grotius 



202 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH, 

and Puffendorf. In the list of Court Revels for 1756, it appears 
that there was acted before Queen Elizabeth, "The Historie of 
Mucius Scsevola showen at Hampton Court on twelf-daie at night 
enacted by the children of Wyndsor and the chapell." Gay, in pre- 
dicting the fate of certain critics on an opera upon the subject, in- 
timates that they, like Mucius Scsevola, will burn their fingers. 
The motto of the 94th number of the Toiler is, 

Si non errasset, fecerat ille minus. 
Had he not erred, his glory had been less. 

The Paper contains, in illustration of the motto, a romantic story 
of modern life, in which a lover saves a wrong lady from a theatre 
which was on fire; and, on finding his mistake, runs back when it 
is too late to save, but not to meet, his mistress, and they are burnt 
in each other's arms. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on Habitual Sins, observes that 
" all holy penitents ought to arise to greater excellence than if they 
had never sinned. 

Major deceptae fama est et gloria dextrae, 
Si non errasset, fecerat ilia minus. 

Scsevola's hand grew famous for being deceived, and it had been less 
reputation to have struck his enemy to the heart, than to do such 
honourable infliction upon it for missing." 



CXLIII. 
PORTIA. 



When Portia had been told the fate of her husband 
Brutus, and her grief had made her complain that every 
weapon had been withdrawn from her, "Have you not yet 
learned," she said, " that death cannot be denied ? I thought 
that my father (Cato) might have taught you this," she 
spoke, and with a greedy mouth swallowed the flaming em- 



V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 203 

bers, exclaiming, "Go now, troublesome crowd, deny me a 
sword." — Lib. i. Ep. xliii. 

The above epigram may probably have suggested the following, by 
Flaminio, on Yittoria Colonna : 

Non vivam sine te, mi Brute, exterrita dixit 

Portia, et ardentes sorbuit ore faces. 
Davale, te extincto, dixit Victoria, vivam, 

Perpetuo msestos sic dolitura dies. 
Utraque Romana est, sed in hoc Victoria major, 

Nulla dolere potest mortua, viva dolet. 

Lamb, in a note to his translation of Catullus, writes, " Catullus 
reproaches himself with still surviving under disgraceful rulers. Sui- 
cide is scarcely reprobated by the ancients." (See, however, the sixth 
JEneid.) " Martial makes Portia, in a beautiful epigram, assert it as 
a right not to be refused" (rather that self-destruction cannot be pre- 
vented). He gives the following version of the epigram : 

When the sad tale, how Brutus fell, was brought, 
And slaves refused the weapon Portia sought; 
"Know ye not yet," she said, with towering pride, 
"Death is a boon that cannot be denied? 
I thought my father amply had imprest 
This simple truth upon each Roman breast." 
Dauntless she gulph'd the embers as they flamed, 
And, while their heat within her raged, exclaimed, 
" Now, troublous guardians of a life abhorr'd, 
Still urge your caution, and refuse the sword." 

The epigram is thus rendered by Smart : 

When Brutus' fall wing'd fame to Portia brought 
Those arms her friends conceal'd, her passion sought: 
She soon perceiv'd their poor officious wiles, 
Approves their zeal, but at their folly smiles: 
What Cato taught Heaven sure cannot deny, 
Bereav'd of all, we still have pow'r to die. 
Then down her throat the burning coal convey'd, 
Go now, ye fools, and hide your swords, she said. 



204 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 



CXLIV. 

CICERO. 

Antony! you have no right to upbraid Photinus (Pto- 
lemy's agent in the assassination of Pompey) ; you, who in- 
flicted a greater injury on your country by the death of 
Cicero than by your whole proscription! madly you draw 
your sword against the mouth of Rome, a crime with which 
even Catiline would not have defiled himself. An impious 
soldier was corrupted by your wicked and profuse gold to 
procure for you the silence of a single tongue. But what 
avails you the dear-bought suppression of his sacred elo- 
quence? the whole world will rise to speak for Cicero, — Lib. v. 
Up. LXX. 

Dryden, in his Life of Lucian, speaking of a Dutch critic who 
had arraigned Lucian' s taste and understanding, writes, "The jaundice 
is only in his own eyes, which makes Lucian look yellow to him. All 
mankind will exclaim against him for preaching this doctrine, and be 
of opinion, when they read his Lucian, that he looked in a glass when 
he drew his picture. I wish I had the liberty to lash this frog-land 
wit as he deserves; but, when a speech is not seconded in Parliament, 
it falls of course ; and this author has the whole senate of the learned 
to pull him down : incipient omnes pro Cicerone loqui" 

In Voltaire's Questions sur V Encyclopedic, Art. Ciceron, is a 
defence of Cicero's character and writings against a French author, 
who had vituperated them. He concludes " Plaignons ceux qui ne 
lisent pas, plaignons encore plus ceux qui ne lui rendent pas justice. 
Opposons au detracteur Francois les vers de l'Espagnol Martial: 

Quid prosunt sacrse pretiosa silentia linguae? 
Incipient omnes pro Cicerone loqui. 

Ta prodigue fureur acheta son silence; mais l'univers entier parle 
a jamais pour lui." 



V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 205 

CXLV. 

ANTONY. 

Antony committed a crime equal to that of the Egyptian 
assassin (Photinus, minister of Ptolemy) ; each sword cut off a 
sacred head. One head was your glory, Rome! when you 
led your laurelled triumphs; the other, when you put forth 
your eloquence. But the crime of Antony was more heinous 
than that of Photinus; the Egyptian incurred guilt for a 
master; Antony for himself. — Lib. Hi. Ep. lxvi. 

Grotius, in his celebrated treatise on the Bights of War and of 
Peace, discusses, at considerable length, the question whether a person 
ought (in point of morality) to obey his government when commanded 
to do what he considers contrary to rectitude. He observes, that 
" Disobedience is a less evil than homicide. As the ancients say that 
the Gods did not venture to absolve Mercury for the death of Argus, 
though done by the command of Jupiter; so neither does Martial 
exculpate Photinus the minister of Ptolemy : 

Antoni tamen est pejor, quam causa Photini: 
Hie facinus domino prsestitit; ille sibi." 

It may be thought that the epigram of Martial is entitled to little 
or no weight as an authority upon the question proposed j and that 
its import is contrary to the purpose for which it is cited, for it 
admits the plea of obedience to a master as an extenuating circum- 
stance. In a recent translation of Grotius by an eminent hand, the 
passage is rendered : " And so Martial condemns Photinus, the attend- 
ant of Ptolemy, who put him to death, as worse than Antony, who 
commanded the act." This translation gives consistency to Grotius's 
argument; but it may, perhaps, be thought that Jeremy Taylor, in 
his Discourse on Human Laws, has reconciled Grotius with Martial 
in a more satisfactory manner. He writes, after quoting Martial's 
epigram, "Though Antony did worse for his own revenge to kill 
Cicero, yet Photinus did ill too when he killed the brave Pompey; 
though at the command of his master Ptolemy : Antony was in- 
finitely to be condemned, and Photinus not to be justified." 



206 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 



CXLVI. 
POMPEY. 

Asia and Europe cover the sons of Pompey ; Africa covers 
Pompey himself, if he be covered at all. What marvel if the 
remains of that family are dispersed over the whole world? 
So great a ruin could not lie buried in one place. — Lib. v. 
Ep. LXXV. 

In a tract on Epitaphs in Hearne's Curious Discourses, the an- 
tiquary Camden cites an epitaph on Richard I. not exempt from 
metrical imperfection ; with reference to which he writes, " An Eng- 
lish poet imitating the epitaph made of Pompey and his children, 
whose bodies were buried in divers countries, made the following of 
the glory of this one King, divided into three places by his funeral : 

"Viscera Cariolum, Corpus fons servat Ebraudi, 
Et Cor Rothomagum, magne Richarde, tuum. 

In tria dividitur unus, qui plus fait uno, 
Non uno jaceat gloria tanta loco. 

" Great Richard ! Poictiers has thy entrails, Font Everard thy body, 
Rouen thy heart — you are divided into three, who were more than 
one. Glory like your's cannot lie in a single place." Richard L, by 
his own testament, directed that his heart should be sent to his 
faithful city of Rouen, his body buried at his father's feet at Font 
Everard, and his entrails among his rebellious Poictevins. 

A similar imitation of Martial's epigram was made with reference 
to the heart and brains of Henry I. having been buried in Normandy, 
and his body in England, by Ronulph, a poet of his day, and who, 
like the poet of Richard I. was not punctilious in point of metre : 

Henrici cujus celebrat vox publica nomen, 
Hoc, pro parte, jacent membra sepulta loco, 

Quern neque viventem capiebat terra, nee unus 
Defunctum potuit consepelire locus. 

In tria partitus, sua jura quibusque resignat 
Partibus, illustrans sic tria regna tribus. 



V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 207 

Spiritui coelum: cordi cerebroque dicata est 
Neustria: quod dederat Anglia, corpus habet. 

"The remains of Henry, whose name is celebrated by the public 
voice, lie, in part, in this place. He was a Prince, whom, when 
living, one country could not contain: so, neither, could one place 
suffice for his burial. Divided into three parts, he bequeathed to 
each part its own rights; thus adorning three kingdoms with their 
appropriate portions. His spirit is resigned to heaven, his heart and 
brains to Normandy, his body to England which gave it birth." 

The following inscription, by Theodore Beza, on a picture of 
Erasmus at Basle, may, perhaps, be considered as an arrow taken 
from the same quiver: 

Ingens ingentem quern personat orbis Erasmum 

Hie tibi dimidium picta tabella refert. 
At cur non totum 1 ? Mirari desine, lector, 

Integra nam totum terra nee ipsa capit. 

" This picture represents to you the half figure of the great Erasmus, 
whose fame resounds through every region of the earth. Why have 
we not him at full length! Reader, cease your marvelling: the 
world itself could not contain the whole of Erasmus." 



CXLVII. 

OTHO, CATO. 



Whilst Bellona was wavering as to the issue of civil war, 
and there was a chance left for the soft Otho (mollis Otho) 
coming off victorious, he condemned the continuance of the 
sanguinary contest, and pierced his naked breast with an un- 
erring hand. Granted that Cato was superior to Otho in his 
life, could any one surpass Otho in dying? — Lib. VI. Ep. xxxn. 

With regard to the above epigram, Montagne, in an Essay on the 
Character of Cato, writes, " Ce personage-la fut veritablement un 
homme que nature choisit pour monstrer jusques ou l'humaine ou 
payenne fermete et Constance pouvoit atteindre : Mais je ne suis pas 



208 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

icy & mesmes, pour traiter ce riche argument: je veux seulement 
faire luiter ensemble les traits de cinq poetes Latins sur la louange 
de Caton." The first of these five testimonies is taken from the above 
epigram : 

Sit Cato, dum vivit, sane vel Csesare major. 
Dry den, in his poem of Astrcea Redux, upon the subject of the 
Restoration, has these lines on Charles II. : 

He would not, like soft, Otko, hope prevent, 
But stay'd, and suffered fortune to repent. 

On which Walter Scott observes, that " it was no extraordinary com- 
pliment to Charles, that he did not, after his defeat at Worcester, 
follow an example more classical than inviting." Murphy, in the 
notes to his translation of Tacitus, observes, " Plutarch tells us that 
he himself visited Otho's tomb at Brixellum. Those perishable ma- 
terials have long since mouldered away, but the epitaph written by 
Martial (the above epigram, which he cites at length in the original) 
will never die." 

Martial has another epigram more expressly on Cato, relative to 
his visit to the Floral Games, from which is taken the motto of the 
446th number of the Spectator, and that of the 122nd number of the 
Tatler on the appearance of Mr Isaac Bickerstaff at Drury Lane 
Theatre, viz. Cur in theatrum, Cato severe, venisti ? 



CXLVIII. 

DOMITIAN'S RETURN FROM THE SARMATIAN WAR. 

Whilst the recent glory of the Pannonian War is related, 
and sacrifices at all altars are kindled for the return of Jove 
(Domitian), the People, the Knights, the Senate giving frank- 
incense ; and, for a third victory, there being a third distribu- 
tion of gifts among the Latian tribes ; — although, Domitian ! 
you accept only a laurel, and decline a public triumph, Rome 
will celebrate your triumph in secrecy; nor will the laurel 



V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 209 

of your peace (conceded to the conquered nations) he in- 
ferior to one of war (nee minor ista tuas laurea pacis erit). 
What, now, do you think of the piety of the nation towards 
yourself? It is the first virtue of Princes to know their 
own. — Lib. viii. Ep. xm. 

It is possible that Milton may have had this epigram in his view 
when writing that celebrated passage of his sonnet to Cromwell : 

Peace hath her victories 
No less renowned than war. 

Lord Bacon, in his Essay, entitled Of Counsel, writes, in refer- 
ence to some inconvenience of counsel which he had stated, "But 
the best remedy is if Princes knew their counsellors, as well as their 
counsellors know them : 

Principis est virtus maxima, nosse suos." 

In an ancient life of William the Conqueror, in the Harleian 
Miscellany, the line Principis est virtus maxima, nosse suos, is quoted, 
and applied to that King. In Ben Jonson's Devices for the enter- 
tainment of King James passing to his coronation, the figure of the 
Genius of the City of London, in the course of a long speech to 
his Majesty, says : 

Never came man more long'd for, more desir'd, 

And, being come, more reverenced, loved, admired. 

Hear and record it, "In a Prince it is 

No little virtue, to know who are his." 



CXLIX. 

DOMITIAN LOYED. 



(I.) 
Caesar! although you make so many liberal donations, 
and even promise to exceed them, conqueror as you are of 
princes, and conqueror of yourself, you are beloved by the 

MART. p 



210 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

people not, surely, on account of your largesses, but they love 
your largesses for your sake. — Lib. viii. Ep. liv. 

(ii.) 
thou chief Governor and Parent of the World ! though 
the wintry North, and the barbarous Peuce (island of the 
Danube), and the Danube growing warm under the strikings 
of hoofs, (frozen), and the Rhine, whose rebellious horn has 
been thrice broken, detain you in conquering the country of a 
perfidious people, yet you cannot be absent from our vows. 
Even there, Csesar! we are present with our minds and 
with our eyes; and to such a degree do you engross the 
attention of every one, notwithstanding your absence, that 
the crowd itself of the great circus cannot say whether 
Passerinus or Tigris is running. — Lib. vn. Ep. vi. 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on the Final Cause of Human 
Actions, writes, "But even as the serving of God, without intuition 
of the reward, is virtually a serving God for love of Him ; so serving 
God out of mere love of Him is virtually serving God for reward, 
Diligeris populo non propter praemia, Caesar, 
Propter te populus praemia, Caesar, amat. 
For as no man can wisely hope for the reward but he who does love 
God, so no man loves God purely and for himself, but he knows also 
that he is most sure of his reward. It is like St Paul wishing himself 
anathema for his brethren; the greater charity he had in so wishing, 
the further that thing was from being effected." 

It may be questioned whether Moore has borrowed an idea from 
the last of the following lines of another epigram of Martial relative 
to the phenomenon alluded to in the above epigrams : 
Dum te longa sacro venerantur gaudia circo, 

Nemo quater missos currere sensit equos. 
Nullum Roma duceni, nee te sic, Caesar, amavit, 
Te quoque jam non plus, ut velit ipsa, potest. 

Chloris, I swear by all I ever swore, 
That from this hour I shall not love thee more. 
"What! love no more, oh! why this alter'd vow?" 
Because I cannot love thee more than now. 



V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 211 

CL. 

DOMITLAN A MAECENAS. 

(I.) 
The crowd, O Augustus! that presents petitions to you, 
and I, also, who offer little books to my Lord, are persuaded 
that God can attend to the Muses as well as to public affairs, 
and that he is even pleased with such flowers. 0, be favour- 
able to your poets! we are your sweet glory, we your first 
care, and your delight. The oak and the laurel of Phoebus do 
not exclusively become you : let there be wreathed for you a 
civic crown made of our ivy. — Lib. viii. Ep. lxxxii. 

(ii.) 
On my petition, he who alone could do it has granted me 
the jus trium liberorum (the right of the parents of three 
children). Farewell ! (valebis, a term of divorce), Avife ! the 
emperors gift ought not to become superfluous (by having 
three children in the natural way). — Lib, n. Ep. xcn. 

(in.) 
If I should receive two supper invitations, one from Jove 
to the stars, the other from Caesar to his heaven, although the 
distance were shorter to the stars than to the imperial palace, 
I should send back this answer, viz. " Find another guest for 
the Thunderer; behold, my Jupiter detains me on earth." — 
Lib. ix. Ep. xcin. 

Martial is usually quoted as the authority for the practice of the 
emperors conferring the right of three children (jus trium liberorum) 
on those who had none. He tells us, moreover, that he was an Eques, 
which was probably by imperial favour, as he could scarcely have 
been possessed of the requisite income, since he was perpetually pay- 
ing early and distant salutations, borrowing, or begging for money or 
clothes. 

The third epigram would appear to have been written in return 
for ambrosia received: so Statius seems to have been transported with 
enthusiasm at supping with Domitian : 

p2 



212 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Mediis videor discumbere in astris, 
Cum Jove, et Iliaca porrectum sumere dextra 
Immortale merum : steriles transegimus annos; 
' Heec sevi mihi prima dies, hie limina vitse. 
Magne Parens, te, spes hominum, te, cura Deorum 
Cerno jacens? datur hsec juxta, datur ora tueri 
Yina inter, mensasque, et non assurgere fas est? 



-I 



Quintilian and Juvenal have left strong testimony in favour of 
Domitian's patronage of literature, and they are cited for this purpose 
along with Martial's epigrams, by Niebuhr. It will probably be con- 
cluded that Domifcian may have been capable of more refined amuse- 
ments than the one in which he is said to have taken particular 
interest, the catching of flies. 



CLI. 

NERVA'S ACCESSION. 



(I.) 
Nerva, the most mild of Roman senators, has commenced 
his reign. We are now admitted to the full enjoyment of 
Helicon. Fear has vanished, and in its place are returned 
undeviating Faith, cheerful Clemency, and limited Power. 
This, pious Rome ! is the prayer of all your own people, and 
of your tributary nations, that you may always have such an 
emperor, and himself a long time ! Nerva ! persevere in 
a character so rare as your own, and in your own manners, 
which would be approved alike by sage Numa and cheerful 
Cato. You now exercise the power of indulging in largesses, 
and in promises, for which the benignant deities have scarcely 
supplied resources : but you had the will before you had the 
power, since, under a severe prince, and in bad times, you 
had the courage to be good. — Lib. xn. Ep. vi. 



V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 213 

(II.) 

Vainly, ye flatteries, you present yourselves to me in a 
miserable plight, with worn-out lips. I am not going to sing 
of a Lord or of a God. Rome is no longer a place for you* 
Go far away to the cap-clad (pileatos) Parthians ; and base, 
humiliated, and suppliant as ye are, kiss the feet of their 
painted kings. We have not a Lord, but an emperor, but 
a senator who is a paragon of justice. He it is who has 
brought back to Rome Truth in a rustic garb and with unper- 
fumed tresses from the mansions of Styx. Under this Prince, 
Rome, beware how you repeat your former adulatory lan- 
guage. — Lib. x. Ep. Lxxii. 

The passage in the first of the above epigrams, Licet toto nunc 
Helicone frui, was adopted by Ben Jonson as the motto to his Pane- 
gyre on the happy entrance of James our Sovereign to his first high 
session of Parliament in this his kingdom. 

In a speech, by Hollis, on the impeachment of the ship-money 
judges, the last line of the same epigram is thus applied to Sir Ran- 
dolph Crewe, who dissented from the ship-money judgment: "He 
kept his innocency when others let theirs go ; when himself and the 
commonwealth were alike deserted ; which raises his merit to a higher 
pitch. For to be honest, when every body else is honest, when honesty 
is in fashion, and is tramp, as I may say, is nothing so meritorious. 
But to stand alone in the breach, to own honesty when others dare 
not do it, cannot be sufficiently applauded or sufficiently rewarded. 
And that did this good old man do ; for in a time of general desertion 
he preserved himself pure and untainted, temporibusque malis, ausus 
es esse bonus." 

Addison, in his Dialogue on Medals, gives the following version 
of a part of the second epigram : 

In vain, mean flatteries ye try 
To gnaw the lip, and fall the eye. 
No man a God or Lord I name: 
From Romans far be such a shame! 
Go, teach the supple Parthian how 
To veil the bonnet on his brow: 



214 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Or on the ground all prostrate fling 
Some Pict, before his barbarous King. 

It may seem that Martial sent his tribe of personified flatteries, 
not to teach the Parthians, but to kiss as they did in Parthia : so the 
flinging of a Pict on the ground does not appear to have occurred to 
any of Martial's commentators, who have construed Pictorum as mean- 
ing not Picts, but, adjectively, painted, rendering it as applied to the 
spendid robes of the Parthian Kings, which are spoken of by other 
authors. 

Addison, in illustrating an old coin struck in commemoration of 
a victory of Lucius Yerus over the Parthians, writes, " You see on 
the captive's head the cap which the Parthians, and, indeed, most of 
the Eastern nations, wear on medals. Martial has distinguished them 
by this cap (pileatos), as their chief characteristic." 

Selden, in his Titles of Honour, when treating of the kissing of 
the Emperor's and Pope's feet, observes, that "Martial, in Kerva's 
time, rejected those base flatteries which had been paid to Domitian, 
for he saith 

Ad Parthos procul ite pileatos, 

Et turpes, humilesque, supplicesque 

Pictorum sola basiate regum." 

The conversers in Addison's Dialogue on Medals are very severe 
on Martial for his strictures on Domitian, in this epigram : " I can- 
not hear, says Cynthio, without indignation, the satirical reflection 
which Martial has made on the memory of Domitian. It is certain 
so ill an Emperor deserved all the reproaches that could be heaped 
upon him, but he did not deserve them of Martial. I must confess 
I am less scandalised at the flatteries the epigrammatist paid him 
when living, than the ingratitude he showed him when dead." 

Martial's tergiversation animadverted on by Addison may have 
supplied Swift with thoughts on the same subject, though it is not 
necessary to suppose that he went back to the ancients for incidents 
of very common modern occurrence : 

A. Prince, the moment he is crown' d, 
Inherits every virtue round, 
As emblems of the sovereign pow'r, 
Like other baubles in the Tow'r. 



-•] 



ROMAN HISTORY. 

But, once you fix him in the tomb, 
His virtues fade, his vices' bloom, 
His panegyrics then are ceas'd, 
He grows a tyrant, dunce, or beast. 
As soon as you can hear his knell, 
This god on earth turns devil in hell. 



215 



CLII. 
TRAJAN'S RESTITUTION. 

Peisce Trajan! may the Gods grant you all the rewards 
due to your deserts and ratify in perpetuity whatever they 
grant! especially for your act of restitution to despoiled 
patrons, whereby they will enjoy again the right of succession 
and other benefits and powers of patronage, of which they 
had been deprived by Doinitian, who exiled them front their 
own freedmen. You were worthy to have an unimpaired 
Roman citizen for your own client, a boon which, if the 
claim of patronage be established by any exile, you will 
not fail to ratify. — Lib. x. Ep. xxxiv. 

The commentators are at variance concerning the import of the 
above epigram, some thinking that it had reference to all patrons, 
all having been deprived of some of their rights over their freedmen 
by Domitian. With regard to a modern use of the epigram; — Upon 
the trial of Garnet, Superior of the Jesuits, for the Gunpowder Plot, 
the Earl of Northampton, who was a member of the commission 
for his trial, addressed to him a speech after the peers had found him 
guilty, and before sentence was passed : the Earl afterwards pub- 
lished his speech, which is an extraordinary specimen of the pedantry 
of the times; he concludes his exhortation to Garnet, thus, " Withal, 
as Martial did for Trajan, do thou wish for the best of Majesty, to 
whom you meant the worst of malice : 

Di tibi dent quicquid, Princeps Auguste (Trajane, orig.) mcrcris, 
Et rata perpetuo, qure tribuere, velint." 



216 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. 



CLIII. 
TRAJAN'S ENTRY INTO ROME. 

Happy they to whom the urns containing the lots of life 
have given to behold the Emperor glittering with Northern 
suns and stars! When will come that day on which the 
fields, and the trees, and every window shall shine adorned 
by the fair sex of Latiuni, and there shall be delays in the 
end productive of pleasure, and the dust of Caesars caval- 
cade shall be seen from afar; and the whole of Rome shall 
be visible to all on the Flaminian way (leading from the 
North), and you, Csesar, shall lead the procession in the 
garb of a Roman Knight, and accompanied by a retinue of 
painted Africans, habited in their native costume, and 
there shall be but one word of the people, "venit" (he 
comes) ? — Lib. x. Ep. vi. 



This epigram seems to bear upon the point whether Roman 
windows usually looked into the streets (which those at Pompeii 
very rarely did), though Becker does not notice it in his remarks on 
that controversy (Lucebit Latia culta fenestra nuru). It is stated 
by Pliny that Trajan on the occasion alluded to entered Rome on 
foot, and Dio mentions that he always accompanied his armies on 
foot. Raderus and Becker infer from the above epigram that Rome 
was illuminated, and they adduce other instances of Roman illumi- 
nations. Ben Jonson, in his description of King James's procession 
to Parliament, which has a motto from Martial, outvies him in the 
same strain of adulation : 

Some cry from tops of houses; thinking noise 
The fittest herald to proclaim true joys. 
Others on ground, run gazing by his side, 
All as unwearied as unsatisfied: 
And every window grieved it could not move 
Along with him, and the same trouble prove. 



V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 217 

The happiness of those whose urns gave them the joy of seeing 

the Emperor is paralleled, if not imitated, in Cowley's eulogy on 

Charles II., whose entry into London resembled that of Trajan into 

Home : 

Happy who did remain 

Unborn till Charles's reign! 

Cowley transcends Martial in the description of noises and illumi- 
nations : 

Come, mighty Charles! desire of nations, come! 
Come, yon triumphant exile, home! 
He's come, he's safe on shore; I hear the noise 
Of a whole land, which does at once rejoice. 
The mighty shout sends to the sea a gale, 
And swells up every sail: 
The bells and guns are scarcely heard at all, 
Th' artificial joy's drown'd by the natural. 
All England but one bonfire seems to be, 
One .ZEtna shooting flames into the sea. 
The starry worlds that shine to us afar, 
Take ours at this time for a star. 



CHAPTER VI. 
MYTHOLOGY. 



The epigrams of Martial relating to the mythology of the 
Romans are chiefly connected with adulation to the emperors, 
of the extent of which adulation they afford some striking 
examples. The epigrams of this class, moreover, bring forward 
several of the most remarkable attributes and insignia of the 
Pagan divinities; whilst they suggest interesting reflections 
arising from the undisguised manner in which a popular poet 
treated the superstitions of the vulgar. Some of the following 
epigrams on rivers and cities exemplify the mythological halo 
with which the ancient poets invested the scenes of Nature, 
as Gray describes it : 

Where each old poetic mountain 

Inspiration breath' d around, 
Ev'ry shade and hallo w'd fountain 

Murmur'd deep a solemn sound. 

The modern uses of the epigrams comprised in the present 
Chapter are principally to be found in Addison's Dialogues 
on Medals, Spence's Polymetis, and in treatises on Roman 
antiquities. Addison undertook the unriddling, as he calls it, 
of ancient medals by the aid of the Latin poets, observing 
that " there cannot be any more authentic illustrations of 
Roman medals, especially those that are full of fancy, than 
such as are drawn from the poets." And, in speaking of the 
personifications of the Virtues (of which several have been 



CH. VI.] MYTHOLOGY. 219 

already noticed in this work) as " imaginary persons inhabit- 
ing old coins/' he says that they are "generally shown in 
petticoats, and that, although they are a little fantastical in 
their dress, they have not a single ornament for which the 
poets cannot assign a reason." The design of Spence, in his 
Poly metis, is to compare* the descriptions and expressions in 
the Roman poets that can in any way relate to imaginary 
beings, with the works that remain to us of the old masters, 
and to examine the mutual lights which they cast on each 
other. 

The classical poets were frequently put into requisition 
during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. for the proper 
functions and costume of allegorical personages in masques 
and pageants. Sir John Harrington, for instance, has left us 
an account of a number of allegorical personages getting in- 
toxicated at Theobalds on the occasion of the banquet given 
there to James I. and the king of Denmark ; when, he writes, 
that Peace, "much contrary to her semblance, most rudely 
made war with her olive-branch, and laid on the pates of 
those who did oppose her coming." It would be impossible 
to filiate such imaginary beings that occur in pageantry on 
any particular ancient poet, except where their paternity is 
expressly referred to. This kind of modern use has been 
nearly exploded, unless in a few recent statues, medals, and 
works of fiction, not forgetting Britannia, who continues to 
preside over our copper coinage. 



CLIV. 

JUPITER 



Who is the artist that, in imitating the imperial visage, 
has surpassed the ivory of Phidias in Latian marble? Such 



220 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

is the aspect of the universe, such the look of the serene 
Jupiter : thus he thunders, when he thunders without a cloud. 
— Lib. ix. Ep. xxv. 

Spence, in his Polymetis, has pointed out the distinctions between 
the mild and the terrible Jupiter, adducing the above epigram as 
descriptive of the former. He says that the mild Jupiter was gene- 
rally represented in a sitting posture, and of white marble; and he 
describes three kinds of lightning which were employed by ancient 
sculptors to be held in Jupiter's hand, according to the temper in 
which he was exhibited. Martial, in one epigram, describes the Thun- 
derer under a still milder form than in the imperial visage, his hand 
not holding any thunderbolt, the god being, as the poet says, in love : 
Die mihi quern portas, volucrum regina? Tonantem. 
Nulla manu quare fulmina gestat? amat. 



CLV. 
MINERYA, 



(I.) 
Accept, Csesar ! the impenetrable breastplate of the war- 
like Minerva, in which the head of Medusa swells with rage : 
when you have not occasion to use it, people may call it a 
breastplate; but, when fixed on thy sacred breast, it is an 
. — Lib. vii. Ep. I. 



(ii.) 
Tell me, fierce virgin! since you have your helmet and 
your spear, why you have not your segis? Csesar has it. — 
Lib. xiv. Ep. clxxix. 

Spence observes, in his Polymetis, that it was " a very common 
thing among the Romans to transfer the distinguishing attributes of 
their divinities to the statues of their emperors : this species of flat- 
tery was carried by the old artists in no point further than in the 



VI.] MYTHOLOGY. 221 

gorgon on Minerva's breastplate. I doubt not but one might make a 
series of emperors from Augustus to G-allienus, from the perfection to 
the absolute fall of the arts in Rome, with this attribute of Minerva 
on their breastplate." The head of Medusa on the segis is some- 
times represented as a most beautiful, and at others a most horrible, 
object; there is a poem by Shelley on Leonardo da Yinci's picture of 
Medusa's head. There was a statue of Minerva in the capitol without 
her segis, which suggested to Martial the last of the above glozing 
epigrams. Spence mentions that he saw, at Florence, a statue of 
Domitian with an segis for his breastplate, which, he observes, was 
the very same turn of flattery used by the artist in marble, which 
is*expressed in words by Martial; as to which he quotes at length 
the above two epigrams. Martial elsewhere calls Minerva Pallas 
Ccesariana; but he contrives to have a sly hit at her inferiority to 
Venus in their contest for the prize of beauty : 

Qui pinxit Yenerem tuam, Lycori, 
Blanditus, puto, pictor est Minerva?. 
"Whoever painted your Yenus, Lycoris, must have been flattering 
Minerva." 



CLVI. 

APOLLO. 



Apollo ! Parthenius makes to you this offering of frank- 
incense from a full casket (acerra) ; supplicating you, at the 
same time, that his child Burrus, who is now just completing 
his first lustrum, may fill innumerable olympiads. Ratify, we 
beseech you, his parents' vows. So doing, may you be beloved 
by your wife (Daphne); and may your sister (Diana) enjoy 
undisturbed chastity, and yourself shine in the flower of per- 
petual youth; and may your hair be longer than that of Bac- 
chus! — Lib. iv. Ep. xlv. 

Spence observes that Apollo is commonly represented as more 
handsome than Mercury and less effeminate than Bacchus ; bui that, 



222 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. 



in the collections of ancient statues, one is apt now and then to take 
a Bacchus for an Apollo, both being characterized by very long hair, 
such being a curious method of typifying perpetual youth : he quotes 
from the above epigram, 

Perpetuo sic flore mices; sic denique non sint 
Tarn longse Bromio, quam tibi, Phoebe, comae. 

Augustus had an affectation of being compared to Apollo. Mar- 
tial, it has been seen, in an elegy on Glaucia (which Spence refers to 
for this purpose), speaks of him, 

Aut quis Apollineo pulchrior ore fuit. 

The acerra, or casket, for holding frankincense, is shown by 
Addison on the reverse of a coin of Faustinus; it is there placed in 
the hands of an allegorical figure of Piety : for the use of the acerra 
he quotes the first line of the above epigram, Hose tibi pro t nato plend 
dat Icetus acerra. 



CLVIL 

BACCHUS. 



(I.) 
The satyr loves me (a calaihus, or drinking cup), Bacchus 
loves me, I am loved by the drunken tiger, who has been 
taught to lick the overflowing wine with which his master's 
feet are wet. — fjib. xiv. Ep. cvn. 

(ii.) 
The huntsman of the Ganges (Gangetkus), in flight on his 
swift horse, has not dreaded so many tigers, as your Rome 
has recently beheld, to its inexpressible delight. Your arena, 
Germanicus, has surpassed Bacchus's triumph from the 
shores of the Red Sea, and all the spoils and treasures of the 
conqueror of India : for when Bacchus led behind his chariots 
the vanquished Indians, he was content with a pair of tigers. 
— Lib. vin. Ep. xxvi. 



VI.] MYTHOLOGY. 223 

Spence notices that "the cantharus, calathus, or scyplius, in the 
hands of Bacchus, and the tiger that one so often sees in one fond 
posture or another, at the feet of his statues, indicate his character 
as being the god of wine and jollity." He refers to the authority of 
Martial, that the Roman poets wore ivy crowns in honour of Bacchus 
more frequently than laurel crowns in honour of Apollo, (as in the 
epigram on Domitian a Maecenas,) and that Bacchus was next to 
Apollo for the beauty of his face, and the length and flow of his 
hair, indicative of perpetual youth (as noticed in the epigram on 
Apollo). He quotes, at length, the first of the above epigrams, 
(which was an accompaniment to a saturnalian present of calathi,) 
for Bacchus's tiger-companion, viz. 

Nos Satyri, nos Bacchus amat, nos ebria tigris, 
Perfusos domini lambere docta pedes. 

Dryden, in his Alexander s Feast, alludes to Bacchus's perpetual 
youth and beauty, and his triumph : 

The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung, 
Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young: 
The jolly god in triumph comes, 
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums. 



CLVIII. 

MERCURY. 



Mercuey, named Cyllenius ! the glory of heaven, the 
eloquent messenger, whose golden wand (caduceus) is tinged 
with green of serpents twisted round it ; may you have ever 
plenty of amorous thefts, and your Mother's (Maia's) Ides be 
honoured with sacred leaves, and your grandfather (Atlas) 
be pressed with a moderate weight on his shoulders (of the 
heavens), on condition, that Norbana with her husband Cams 
may always celebrate in joy their wedding-day. Cams, as 
a pious priest, here dispenses his gifts of wisdom (of which 



224 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. 



you are the god), and here invokes you with frankincense, 
as, like yourself, conspicuous for fidelity to Jupiter (jL e. the 
one to Domitian, the other to Jove above). — Lib. vn. Ep. 

LXXIII. 

Spence quotes the above epigram in illustration of Mercury's 
caduceus, or wand for conducting departed spirits to the shades 
below. He observes, that the descriptions of it are so perfect in the 
Roman poets, that one might instruct a painter from, them how to 
colour every part of it; it was of a gold colour, with two serpents 
twined round it, of a greenish colour, which colour was reflected on 
the gold. In several antiques the caduceus has wings, which are not 
mentioned by the poets. 

Addison, in his Dialogue on Medals, gives two reverses, the one 
of Tiberius, the other of Lucius Verus, bearing the caduceus with 
two serpents. He quotes two lines from the above epigram, which 
he thus versifies : 

Descend, Cyllene's tutelary god, 

With serpents twining round thy golden rod. 

He says that the caduceus stands on old coins as an emblem of peace, 
by reason of its stupifying quality that has gained it the title of 
virga somnifera. The introduction of two heads of the Emperor's 
children in the coin of Tiberius, and of two heads joined together in 
that of Lucius Verus, may, perhaps, have some reference to the male 
and female serpents round the caduceus ; for the like reason Mercury 
with his caduceus may, in the above epigram, have been specially in- 
voked on the occasion of a marriage. 

In Ben Jonson's Masque of the Penates, Mercury accosts James I. 
and his Queen ; in the course of a long speech, he says, " The place 
whereon you are now advanced is the Arcadian hill Gyllene, the place 
where myself was both begot and born, and from which I am fre- 
quently called Gylleniusr Mercury introduces his Mother Maia to 
the King and Queen. At the entertainment on the occasion of the 
delivery of Theobalds by the Earl of Salisbury, Mercury announces 
to the Genius of the House the impending change : he descends in a 
flying posture, holding in his hand the caduceus. 



VI.] MYTHOLOGY. 225 

CLIX. 

HERCULES. 

(I.) 
Appian Way ! the most famous of the ways of Italy, 
thou hast now a temple consecrated by Cassar therein to be 
venerated under the semblance of Hercules (Domitian having 
erected a temple on the Appian Way to Hercules, in which 
he was himself to be worshipped, his own statue represent- 
ing the figure of the demi-god). Do you wish to know the 
exploits of the more ancient Hercules ? They are as follows : 
he subdued the Libyan giant Antaeus ; he took away the 
golden apples of the Hesperides ; he ungirdled (discinxit) 
the Amazonian Queen, though protected by a shield fastened 
with a Scythian belt ; he slew the Nemaean lion and the 
Arcadian wild boar ; he dragged from the woods the brazen- 
footed stag, and the Stymphalides (birds that fed on human 
flesh) from their lakes ; he brought with him the dog Cer- 
berus from the Stygian stream ; he prevented the Hydra 
from renewing its heads after they were cut off ; he dragged 
the oxen of Geryon from Spain to the Tyber in which he 
washed them. All these feats were performed by the lesser 
Hercules ; now listen to the achievements of the greater 
Hercules, henceforth to be worshipped near the sixth milestone 
from the Albanian tower (the eighth from the city). He, it 
was, who defended (unsuccessfully) the palace when occupied 
by a bad Prince (Vitellius) ; whilst a boy he fought his first 
battle for his Jove (taking refuge in the Capitol). When he had 
won the imperial reins, he resigned them to his father, and 
retained only the third place in the empire (after Vespasian 
and Titus) ; three times he broke the perfidious horns of the 
Sarmatian river Ister (the Danube) ; he thrice bathed his 
sweating steed in Getic snow. Being often denied an oppor- 
tunity of triumphing over the Parthian, lie brought home 

MART. (^ 



226 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

in triumph a new name from the Hyperborean world (Germa- 
nicus) ; he gave temples to the gods, morals to the people, 
a truce to swords, stars to his family (the temple of the 
Flavian family where his father, mother, and wife were 
worshipped as gods) ; laurel crowns to Jupiter. The divinity 
of Hercules is not ample enough for such great actions ; 
instead of being worshipped under his image, Caesar would 
be more appropriately represented by the Tarpeian Father 
(Jupiter). — Lib. ix. Ep. civ. 

(ii.) 
Hercules was raised to the heavens and the stars, not- 
withstanding the resistance of his stepmother Juno, for his ex- 
ploits in subduing the Nemsean lion, and the Arcadian boar, 
and the anointed giant Antaeus, and Eryx laid low in Sicilian 
dust, and Cacus, who fraudulently dragged stolen cattle by 
their tails into his cave. How small a part of your arena, 
Caesar, are these feats of Hercules ! Each new day ex- 
hibits there greater conflicts. How many lions larger than 
the Nemaean fall there ! How many Maenalian boars does 
your spear transpierce ! If the thrice-conquered Spanish 
shepherd (Geryon) should be restored, you, Caesar, are pre- 
pared with one (Corpophorus, Speet. xxvu.) who could con- 
quer him again. If the Lernian hydra should be multiplied, 
how can it be compared to the monsters exhibited by you 
from the Nile ? The gods, Augustus ! gave an early ad- 
mission into heaven for Hercules's deserts, they reserve for 
you a later apotheosis. — Lib. v. Ep. lxvi. 

(in.) 
The infant crushes two snakes, and does not look upon 
them : already the Hydra could fear his tender hands. — Lib. 
xiv. Ep. clxxvi. 

The demi-god Hercules is one of the most interesting characters 
in classical mythology. He is the type of a life dedicated to active 
virtue; his choice is to this day an edifying lesson of morality. Con- 



VI.] MYTHOLOGY. 227 

cerning Hercules's labours, SpeDce makes particular reference to the 
above epigrams, distinguishing between the twelve ordinary labours 
performed through the malignity of Juno, and the extraordinary 
labours undertaken of his own accord. Spence says that Martial 
mentions seven of the ordinary, and two of the extraordinary labours ; 
Virgil two of the former, and six of the latter; Ovid ten of the for- 
mer, and four of the latter. There is in the Capitoline gallery an 
ancient altar on which the twelve ordinary labours are represented. 
In the Louvre there is an antique statue of Hercules carrying away 
in triumph the Erymathian boar on one of his shoulders. In repre- 
sentations of the conquest of the Amazon, Hercules is usually seen in 
the act of carrying off her girdle (discinxit). The Stymphalides have 
taxed the ingenuity of modern artists, especially on cameos : in some 
gems the birds are left to the imagination, on account of their height, 
but Hercules is seen shooting with his bow, and one of the birds lies 
dead at his feet : in other gems, Hercules is represented kneeling, in 
order to allow of a greater intervening distance. 

The merits which Martial ascribes to Domitian, in the first 
epigram, are open to much impeachment; in addition to those enu- 
merated, he, elsewhere, mentions Domitian's expulsion of informers, 
the restoration of contests in the arena with fists instead of lethal 
weapons, and a cama recta, where only a sportula had been promised. 
Martial also extols Domitian's games, but, in an epigram to Trajan, 
he calls them graves lusus. He disparages Hercules, in comparison 
with Domitian, still more in his description of the female gladiators 
and beast-fighters : 

Prostratum Nemees, et vasta in valle, leonem, 
Nobile et Herculeum fama canebat opus. 

Prisca fides taceat: nam, post tua tempora, Caesar, 
Hsec jam foeminea vidimus acta manu. 

With respect to the last of the above epigrams on the subject of 
the infant Hercules killing the serpents, Spence observes, that " the 
old artists seem to have shown a great deal of fancy in representing 
this story. As Hercules was at the time of the occurrence so abso- 
lutely an infant, they express his ignorance of what the serpents 
were very plainly. Sometimes he has a little smile on his face, as 
if he was pleased with their fine colours, and their motions; some- 
times he looks concerned that he has killed them, and so put an end 

Q2 



228 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. 



to the diversion that they gave him; sometimes they show the 
courage and steadiness of this infant hero in his strong gripe of the 
serpents, and in killing them with so much ease, that he scarcely 
deigns to look upon them. A nurse is occasionally introduced, with 
his twin-brother, the little Eurystheus, in her arms, and in a state of 
fright. All these different ways I have seen in gems or marble, and 
I think there is not any one of them that the poets have not touched 
upon, as well as the artists." He then quotes from the last of the 
above epigrams: 

Elidit geminos Infans, nee respicit, angues. 
Cowley, in his Pindarics, has described the scene of the "bold 
babe " and his " gaily gilded foes." 



CLX. 

JANUS. 

(I.) 
Janus ! although you give commencements to the swift 
coming years, and recall, by your retrospective face, the 
long ages which are past ; although you are supplicated with 
frankincense and saluted with vows ; whilst the purpled Con- 
sul (assuming his office in January) and Magistrates of every 
degree worship you, yet you prefer to these honours the 
glory arising from the event which has happened to this 
city, to have beheld its returning God (Deum, viz. Trajan) in 
your month. — Lib. vin. Ep. viii. 

(ii.) 
O beautiful progenitor of the world and of years, the 
first in order celebrated in public vows and prayers ! Afore- 
time you inhabited a small temple, through which was a 
thoroughfare trodden by a great part of the inhabitants of 
Rome. Now, your threshold is encircled with imperial gifts, 
and you have as many faces as you can number forums (four). 
But you, sacred Father ! in gratitude for such great rewards, 



VI.} MYTHOLOGY. 229 

keep your iron gates closed with a perpetual bolt.— Lib. x. 
Ep. xxviii. 

(in.) 
Janus, the author and parent of the Roman Fasti, when 
he had just beheld the conqueror of the Danube, he thought 
that, numerous as were his faces, they were not enough for 
the occasion, and he wished for more eyes. Then addressing 
the Lord of the Earth, and the God of Nations, he made the 
same announcement in every known tongue, viz. promising 
the Emperor four times the old age of Nestor. Janus ! be so 
propitious, Ave implore you, as to add to your promised term 
of life your own immortality. — Lib. viii. Ep. n. 

Spence, in his Polymetis, refers to the above epigrams ; observing, 
that the two-faced statues of Janus indicated his presidency over 
time, as those with four faces over space. He says that there are 
medals existing in which Janus is represented with four heads; he 
adds that he saw a figure of Janus Quadriformis on a bridge at Rome, 
which, from that circumstance, was called Quatre Capite. The 
shutting of the temple of Janus alluded to in the second epigram 
is illustrative of several passages in the ancient poets, as of Roman 
history and customs. 

Ben Jonson, in the " King's entertainment on passing to his coro- 
nation," had prepared, as a spectacle for King James, at Temple- Bar, 
a temple, which, as an inscription upon it notified, was sacred to 
quadrifrons (four-headed) Janus: "which title," writes Jonson, "is 
said to be given to him, as he representeth all climates and fills all 
parts of the world with his majesty; which Martial would seem to 
allude unto in that hendecasy liable : 

Et lingua pariter locutus omni." 

Around the four heads of the figure of Janus was twined a wreath of 
gold, in which was engraved a verse from Martial slightly varied : 

Tot vultus mihi nee satis putavi. 
"Signifying," as Ben Jonson writes, "that though Janus had four 
faces, yet he thought he had not enough to behold the glory of that 
day." 



I 



230 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 



CLXI. 

ROME. 

Rome, the goddess of regions and of nations, to whom 
there is nothing equal or second, when it had computed, in its 
joy, the long series of years reserved for the life of Trajan, and 
had contemplated the bravery, youth, and martial spirit of so 
great a Prince, spoke thus with pride inspired by his presiding 
authority: Ye nobles of the Parthians, generals of the Scy- 
thians, Thracians, Sauromatans, Getans, Britons (Britanni), I 
am able to show you Ca3sar : come ! — Lib. xu. Ep. viii. 

"The Roman poets," observes Spence, "call Rome the Martial 
City, the Eternal City, the Mistress of all Cities, the Goddess that 
presides over all countries and nations." The globe which was given 
to personified Rome in medals was a significant emblem of universal 
monarchy, as to which he quotes the first line of the above epigram, 

Terrarum Dea, gentiumque Roma! 

Addison, in his Dialogues on Medals, gives a coin of the emperor 
Trajan, in which Rome is represented with a wand in her hand, as a 
symbol of her divinity, and a globe under her feet, which betokens 
her dominion over all the nations of the earth, in reference to which 
Addison quotes the first two lines of the above epigram, with a 
version, 

O Rome, thou goddess of the earth! 

To whom no rival e'er had birth ; 

Nor second e'er shall rise. 

Martial, a Spaniard, notices Rome in a very pretty way, in an 
epigram to an absent friend, 

Si tibi mens eadem, si nostri mutua cura est, 
In quocunque loco Roma duobus erit ; 

and in another epigram to his wife, residing in Spain, 

Tu desiderium dominse mihi mitius urbis 
Esse jubes; Romam tu mihi sola facis. 



VI.] MYTHOLOGY. , 231 

CLXII. 

THE RHINE. 

Rhine, the sire of nymphs, and of all the rivers that 
drink the northern snows! restore Trajan to his people, and 
to Rome ! on which condition, may your waters ever flow un- 
congealed; may no contumelious heifer, dragging a wheeled 
vehicle, trample on your ice-bound surface: may you flow 
through your horns (two principal channels) all golden into the 
sea, and may you be Roman on both your banks (cis et trans). 
The dominant Tyber requires this of you. — Lib. x. Ep. vu. 

Spence, in his Polymetis, observes that the Rhine is spoken of 
personally by several Roman poets : they describe her, as conquered 
by the Romans, sometimes wounded • at others, a captive ; at others, 
received into favour upon submission ; in all which cases, he says, " it 
is remarkable that they never speak of the Rhine without putting us 
in mind, at the same time, of their own conquests and their own 
vanity." In confirmation of these remarks, Spence quotes the above 
epigram, concluding with the line, Et Romanics eas utrdque ripd. 

Promises to rivers of future prosperity are to be found in Milton's 
Comus, and Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess : the expression aureus in 
the epigram may be thought analogous to Milton's, 

May thy billows roll ashore 
The beryl, and the golden ore. 



CLXIII. 
BJETIS (THE GUADALQUIVER). 

B^tis ! (a river in Spain, near the birthplaces of Martial 
and Lucan) whose hairs are encircled with a chaplet of olive- 
leaves, in whose glittering streams the fleeces of the neigh- 
bouring flockg are tinged with gold, whom Bacchus, whom 



232 . MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Pallas loves, to whom Neptune opens an egress into the hoary 
seas, may Instantius enter upon the government of your 
region under favourable auspices, and may its inhabitants 
enjoy in the present year the felicity of the last! Instantius 
is not ignorant of the great burden he undertakes in suc- 
ceeding so excellent a predecessor as Marcus. One who duly 
appreciates the responsibility he incurs, is the more capable 
of sustaining it. — Lib. xn. Ep. c. 

Addison, in his Dialogue on Medals, adduces a series of medals 
representing cities, nations and provinces under the shapes of women ; 
and he writes, " What you take for a fine lady at first sight, when 
you come to look into her, will prove a town, a country, or one of the 
four parts of the world." As a particular instance, Addison mentions 
the reverse of a coin of Adrian, representing Spain as a recumbent 
female figure, with a rabbit at her feet, and a branch of the olive-tree 
in her hand; above the figure is the word Hispania, below the letters 
S. C. {senatus consulto). As illustrative of the type of the olive, he 
says Martial " has given us the like figure of one of the greatest rivers 
in Spain: 

Bastis oliviferd, crinem redimite corona 

Aurea qui nitidis vellera tingis aquis; 
Quern Bromius, quern Pallas amat. 

Pair Baetis! olives wreath thy azure locks; 
In fleecy gold thou cloth'st the neighb'ring flocks ; 
Thy fruitful banks with rival bounty smile, 
While Bacchus wine bestows, and Pallas oil" 

Martial thus conjoins the waters of Bsetis and Castalia: 

Haec meruit, cum te terns, Lucane, dedisset, 
Mixtus Castalia3 Bsetis ut esset aquae. 

With reference to the last line of the above epigram, Dryden, in 
his Observations on the Art of Painting, writes, " Qui sua metitur pon- 
der a, ferre potest; in order that we may undertake nothing beyond 
our forces, we must endeavour to know them; on this prudence our 
reputation depends: a man ought to cultivate those talents which 
make his genius." In Comus we find, 



VI.] MYTHOLOGY. 233 

Sabrina fair! 

Listen where thou art sitting 
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, 

In twisted braids of lilies knitting 
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair. 



CLXIV. 
PRIAPUS. 



Peiapus ! you are not the guardian of a garden, or of a 
fertile vineyard, but of a grove with a few trees out of which 
you were born, and may be born again; I admonish you to 
keep off the hands of thieves, and to preserve wood for its 
master's fire : if this should fall short, remember that you are 
wood. — Lib. viii. Ep. xl. 

Voltaire, in an article entitled Idoldtrie, cites the above epigram, 
with another not so pertinent which he renders, " L' artisan ne peut 
faire des Dieux, c'est celui qui les prie," together with other passages 
from the ancient poets, observing, "on ferait volumes de toutes les 
passages, qui deposent que des images n'etaient que des images." He 
concludes, "Les Grecs et les Romains 6taient des gentils, des poly- 
theistes, et n'etaient point des idolatres." 

Martial would probably have reckoned Priapus among the plebeian 
gods with whom Jupiter condescended to sup after his victory over 
the giants. 

Qua bonus accubuit Genitor cum plebe Deorum, 
Et licuit Faunis poscere vina Jovem. 

The above epigram is thus translated by George Lamb in the 
notes to his Catullus: 

Priapus, thou the placed defence 

Of no fair garden or rich vine; 
But of this thin plantation, whence 

Thou'rt sprung, and may'st prolong thy line. 



234 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 

I warn thee from all theft protect, 

And save this strong and growing brood 

To serve my hearth. Should'st thou neglect, 
I'll make thee know thyself art wood. 



[CH. 



CLXV. 

SACBIFICES. 



Do you wonder, Severas ! that I send you verses, and ask 
you to supper? Jupiter is satiated with ambrosia and lives 
upon nectar, yet we give to him victims, and frankincense, and 
wine. Since the gods have bestowed on you every imaginable 
possession, if you will not have any thing you have already, 
what will you accept? — Lib. xi. Ep. lyiii. 

Dr Malkin, in his Classical Disquisitions, observes that Martial's 
allusion to the meat and drink of the gods, and their acceptance 
of more humble fare in their sacrifices, is "in the true spirit of 
epigram." 

In another epigram of Martial there are some expressions about 
the sacrifice of a goat, which afford a case of suspicion that they may 
have furnished materials to Prynne's celebrated Stigmata Laudis, 
written upon his return to prison after being branded at the instiga- 
tion of Archbishop Laud. Martial's lines are, 

Vite nocens rosa stabat moriturus ad aras 
Hircus, Bacche, tuis victima grata sacris. 
Quern Tuscus mactare Deo cum vellet haruspex. 

Prynne's distich, called his Stigmata Laudis, is, 

Stigmata maxillis referens insignia Laudis, 
Exultans remeo victima grata Deo. 






VI.] MYTHOLOGY. 235 

CLXVI. 

BANKRUPTCY IN OLYMPUS. 

If you, Caesar, should assume the rights of a creditor, 
and call in all you haYe bestowed on heaven, though there 
were a public sale in Olympus, and the gods were compelled 
to part with every thing they possessed, Atlas, who sustains the 
skies, would be obliged to make his load over to you, and there 
would not be an ounce in the As with which Jupiter could 
compound for your claims. What equivalent, indeed, could be 
given for the restored Capitol? What for the laurel of the 
games of Tarpeian Jove instituted by you? What could Juno 
pay for her two temples which you have erected? I pass by 
Minerva, for that goddess may plead in exemption of payment 
that she is always labouring in your service. Why should I 
make mention of Hercules, Apollo, Castor and Pollux? why 
of the Flavian temples added to the Latian sky? You must 
give the gods time for payment, O Augustus, and suspend 
your claim ; for, to pay you forthwith, there is not enough hi 
the whole treasury of Jove. — Lib. ix. Ep. iv. 

Gibbon, in his history, has the following note on a passage in 
which he mentions the destruction of the ancient Capitol of Rome : 
" The new Capitol was dedicated by Domitian : the gilding alone cost 
12,000 talents (about two millions and a half). It was the opinion 
of Martial that if the emperor had called in his debts, Jupiter himself, 
even though he had made a general auction of Olympus, would have 
been unable to pay two shillings in the pound." 

In an adulatory epigram, addressed to Trajan on the occasion of 
his having dedicated to Jupiter the drinking cups of Domitian, Mar- 
tial cries shame on his benefactor to Olympus for having kept Jove in 
indigence, so as to have the balance of account on his side : 

Omnes cum Jove nunc sumus beati, 
At, nuper, pudet, at pudet fateri, 
Omnes cum Jove pauperes cramus. 



CHAPTER VII. 
TOPOGRAPHY. 



The epigrams of Martial which have been arranged under 
the head of Topography, contain some pleasing descriptions 
of ancient scenery and edifices. Part of the objects described 
remains in its ancient grandeur or beauty ; several are to be 
found in ruins ; and many have been effaced by the con- 
vulsions of nature. An insight is given into the amenities of 
villa-life among the Romans, which exhibits one of the prin- 
cipal features of ancient luxury and refinement as it is por- 
trayed by an intelligent eye-witness. 

With regard to the modern uses of epigrams of this class, 
Addison, in the Preface to his Travels in Italy, observes, 
" I have taken care particularly to consider the several pas- 
sages of the ancient poets which have any relation to the 
places or curiosities I met with. It was not one of the least 
entertainments I met with in travelling, to examine these 
several descriptions, as it were, upon the spot, and to com- 
pare the natural face of the country with the landscapes 
which the poets have given us of it." Eustace's Classical 
Tour in Italy is conducted very much after the model of 
Addison's Travels. It will be found that, in both these 
esteemed works, Martial has contributed his share, with other 
authors, towards their embellishment. 

There is another modern use to which epigrams falling 
under the present head have been applied, which is strictly 



CH. VII.] TOPOGRAPHY. 237 

topographical. It will be found in Canina's work, (recently 
translated by Mr Whiteside,) that there are at least a dozen 
passages of Martial which are used by that celebrated anti- 
quary, to identify the sites of ancient forums, streets, temples, 
porticos and other public places or edifices at Rome. This 
kind of use of Martial must be highly interesting to any 
visitant to the Eternal City (so Canina's book is called), but 
it can only be briefly adverted to consistently with the scope 
of the present work, as it does not often afford matter of 
general interest. 



CLXVII. 

VESUVIUS. 



Yonder is Vesuvius, lately verdant with the shadowy 
vines ; there a noble grape under pressure yielded copious 
lakes of wine ; that hill Bacchus preferred to the hills of 
Nysa ; there lately the Satyrs led their dances ; there Venus 
had a residence more agreeable to her than Lacedsemon ; 
that spot was made illustrious by the name of Hercules. 
Now, every thing is laid low by flames, and is buried under 
the sad ashes. Surely the Gods must regret that they pos- 
sessed so much power for mischief. — Lib. IV. Ep. xliv. 

Addison, in his Travels in Italy, gives the following poetical 
version of the epigram : 

Vesuvio, cover' d with the fruitful vine, 

Here flourish'd once, and ran with floods of wine. 

Here Bacchus oft to the cool shades retir'd, 

And his own native Nisa less admir'd: 

Oft to the mountain's airy tops advanc'd, 

The frisking Satyrs on the summits danc'd, 



238 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. 



Alcides here, here Venus grac'd the shore, 

Nor lov'd her favourite Lacedsemon more! 

Now piles of ashes, spreading all around 

In undistinguish'd heaps, deform the ground. 

The gods themselves the ruin'd seats bemoan; 

And blame the mischiefs that themselves have done. 

Perhaps the last line of the epigram: 

Nee superi vellent hoc licuisse sibi, 

which Addison translates, " And blame the mischiefs that themselves 
have done," has more point than he attributes to it; it probably 
referred to a famous saying of Nero, to which Martial frequently 
alludes, that no Emperor before himself had been aware of the extent 
of his own power {quantum sibi liceret); thus, in an epigram on 
Lucian's birth-day, Martial writes : 

Heu! Nero crudelis, nullaque invisior umbra, 
Debuit hoc saltern non licuisse tibi. 

Addison observes, that "the prospect of the Bay of Naples, ac- 
cording to Tacitus, was more agreeable before the burning of Yesuvio; 
that mountain, probably, which, after the first eruption, looked like 
a great pile of ashes, was, in Tiberius's time, shaded with woods and 
vineyards : for I think Martial's epigram may here serve as a com- 
ment to Tacitus." The epigram may also afford an illustration of 
Statius's invitation of his wife to Naples. 

Rogers, in a note to his poem on Italy, in adverting to the death 
of the elder Pliny owing to an eruption of Vesuvius, and the destruc- 
tion of Pompeii, observes, in conformity with Martial's description, to 
which he expressly refers, "In the morning of that day Vesuvius was 
covered with the most luxurious vegetation; every elm had its vine, 
every vine (for it was in the month of August) its clusters." And 
so Sir Edward Lytton, in his Last Bays of Pompeii, takes two of his 
characters, a short time before the catastrophe of that city, a drive on 
Mount Vesuvius, where, as he describes, " the grapes, already purple 
with the smiles of the deepening summer, glowed out from the arched 
festoons which hung pendant from tree to tree." 



VII.] TOPOGRAPHY. 239 

CLXVIII. 
BAI.E. 

(I.) 
Baije, the golden shore of blissful Venus ! the bland gift 
of superb nature ! If I were to sing the praises of Baiso in 
a thousand verses, I should fall short of adequately praising 
Baiee. But I prefer the company of my friend Martialis even 
to Baise. It were too exorbitant a prayer to beg for both at 
the same time : but, if it were possible for the gods to confer 
this double blessing upon me, how happy should I be with 
Martialis and Baise. — Lib. xi. Ep. lxxxi. 

(ii.) 
Whilst you indulge in the enjoyment of happy Baise, 
and swim in its waters whitened with sulphur, my con- 
valescence is improved by residence at my Nomentanian farm, 
in a house not disproportionate to the moderate size of my 
estate. Here are my Baian Suns {Baiani Soles) and the 
soft air of the Lucrine lake (mollis I/ucrintis) : here is my 
equivalent for your wealth. Time was, that I would have 
hastened from any part of the world, to baths of repute ; 
I never feared the length of way. But now, I delight in 
the neighbourhood of the city, and in a place of retire- 
ment which is easy of access. It is enough for me, if I am 
allowed to be idle. — I/lb. VI. Ep. xliii. 

(in.) 
L^evina who, in point of modesty, yielded not to the 
ancient Sabine wives, and who looked more doleful even 
than her care-worn husband, whilst now she trusts herself 
on the Lucrine lake, now on the Avernus, and is often 
warmed by the Baian waters, is caught by a flame. She 



240 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

deserts her husband, and elopes with a stripling ; she came 
to Baiae a Penelope, she returned a Helen. — Lib. i. Ep. lxiii. 

Eustace writes concerning the temple of Venus, which he sup- 
poses to have been situated on a projection of the shore between the 
Lucrine lake and Baise, and where there stands at present an edifice 
called Templo di Venere, that, " no situation is more appropriate to 
the temple of such a presiding divinity than this little promontory, 
whose jutting point commands the whole bay, with all its scenery 
of hills, towns, lakes and villas." He then quotes from the above 

epigram : 

Littus beatse aureum Veneris! 

Baise, superbse blanda dona naturae! 
which is rendered: 

Land of Venus! golden coast! 

Nature's fairest gift and boast, 

Happy Baise! 
Becker has made use of all the above epigrams in his Gallus. He 
refers to the first for an eulogy on Baise; to the second, as an 
authority that the warm springs of Baise were of a muddy whiteness; 
and to the third, as showing that parties of pleasure used to be made 
on the Lucrine lake, and for the expression mollis Lucrinus. Upon 
the strength of this last epigram Becker makes Lycoris and Gallus 
take an excursion on the tranquil mirror of the Lucrine lake in a 
decorated galley, with purple sails : on their excursion, they catch 
and eat Lucrine oysters, which Martial and other authors strongly 
recommend : he refers also to this epigram in proof of the prevalent 
Helen-like morals at Baise. 

As to the Baian Helen, Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on Growth 
in Sin, observes, that "Lsevina, who was chaster than the elder 
Sabines, and severer than her philosophical guardian, was well in- 
structed in the great lines of honour, and of cold justice to her 
husband: but, when she gave way to the wanton ointments and 
looser circumstances of Baise, and bathed often in Avernus, and 
thence hurried to the companies and dressings of Lucrinus, she 
quenched her honour, and gave her body and her virtue as a spoil 
to the follies and intemperance of a young gentleman." 

Martial has an epigram expressing an entirely Roman notion of 
the Baian baths : 



VII.] TOPOGRAPHY. 241 

Dat Baiana mihi quadrantes sportula centum: 

Inter delicias quid facit ilia fames? 
Redde Lupi nobis, tenebrosaque balnea G-rylli; 

Tarn male cum coenem, cur bene, Macce, lavor? 

Anstey took for the motto of bis Bath Guide the passage, nullus 
in orbe locus (sinus, orig.) Baiis prcelucet amcenis. 



CLXIX. 
BAIJ& AND TIBUR 



Whilst I am detained in the enervating region of the 
Lucrine lake, amid caves of pumice, through which tepid 
fountains exude, you, Faustinus, indulge in the delights of 
Tivoli, near to the twentieth mile-stone from Rome. It is, 
indeed, now, the fervid season of the constellation Leo, which 
imparts to Baise a heat greater than what is ordinary even 
in that hot place. Therefore, ye consecrated fountains, and 
holy sea-shores, the abodes of Nymphs and Nereids, farewell ! 
In frosty winter you are to be preferred to the hills of Tivoli, 
but, at this season, you must yield to it, in point of coolness. 
— Lib. iv. Ep. lvii. 

The above epigram is thus translated by Addison: 
While near the Lucrine lake, consum'd to death, 
I draw the sultry air and gasp for breath, 
Where steams of sulphur raise a stifling heat, 
And through the pores of the warm pumice sweat; 
You taste the cooling breeze, where, nearer home, 
The twentieth pillar marks the miles from Rome: 
And now the Sun to the bright Lion turns, 
And Baiae with redoubled fury burns. 
Then briny seas, and tasteful springs farewell! 
Where fountain-nymphs compared with Nereids dwell; 
In winter you may all the world despise, 
But now 'tis Tivoli that bears the prize. 
mart. R 



242 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. 



Addison observes concerning this epigram, that "Baise was the 
winter-retreat of the old Romans, this being the proper season to 
enjoy the Baiani Soles, and the Mollis Lucrinus; as, on the contrary, 
Tibur (Tivoli), Tusculum, Preneste, Alba, Cajetta, Mons Circaeus, 
Anxur, and the like airy mountains and promontories were their 
retirements during the heats of summer." The aspect of the Lucrine 
lake was much altered by an earthquake in 1583. 

Warm springs, Addison mentions, abound in the neighbourhood 
of Baise, and that there is scarcely a disease which has not a bath 
adapted to it. One bath was still shown to travellers as that of 
Cicero, and the same which was celebrated by his grateful freedman, 
as being good for the eyesight, which the universal reading of Cicero's 
works made the eyes of mankind stand in need of : 

Ut, quoniam totum legitur sine fine per orbem, 
Sint plures, oculis quae medeantur, aquae. 

On the other hand, most of the cool retreats of the ancient 
Romans are now, in summer, Eustace says, deserted, on account 
of malaria. 



CLXX. 



TIBUR (TIVOLI). 

We may all resort, at the summer solstice, to the warmest 
spots of Italy, to Ardea, Psestum, and Baise, fervid with the 
heat of the constellation Leo, since Curiatus condemned the 
air of Tivoli, when he was on the point of being transported 
from its extolled waters to those of the Styx. Fate is not 
to be diverted by localities : when death comes, the pestilent 
Sardinia is to be found in the middle of the healthy Tivoli. — 
Lib. iv. Ep. lx. 

Ben Jonson, in an elegy on Sir John Roe, after enumerating 
foreign perils which he had escaped, concludes: 

Which shows, wherever death doth please t' appear, 
Seas, serenes, swords, shot, sickness, all are there. 



VII.] TOPOGRAPHY. 243 

The following French epigram is founded on a similar turn of 
thought with the preceding; the expression being closer to that of 
another epigram of Martial, concerning a dark lady, who was sent 
to Tibur to be made fair, the poet asks, with what result? She 
returned dark as she went: 

L'asthmatique Damon a cru que l'air des champs 

Kepareroit en lui le ravage des ans. 

II s'est fuit, a grands frais, transporter en Bretagne, 

Or, voyez ce qua fait l'air natal qu'il a pris ! 

Damon seroit mort a Paris: 

Damon est mort a la campagne. 

Catullus thought that the locality of Tibur was medicinal ; for he 
wrote a letter of thanks to his Tiburtine villa, for recruiting his 
health after catching a bad cold at a tedious recitation in Rome ; and 
Maecenas was sent to Tivoli by his physician, for the benefit of the 
sound of falling water. 



CLXXI. 

ANXUR (TERRACINA). 



(I.) 
Now the constellation of Taurus (April) looks back on 
the Ram (March), and winter flies from the Gemini (May), 
the country smiles, the ground is covered with grass and 
flowers, the trees with leaves, the Attic nightingale laments 
for Itys: — At this season, Faustinus, what days does Rome 
deprive you of! ye suns, and thou quietude from 
business (tunicata quies), grove, and fountains, and un- 
sinking shore of moistened sand, with splendid (splenclidus) 
Anxur shining above the sea, and a couch commanding a 
view both of a river and the ocean with their ships ! But 
there is not to be seen at Anxur a theatre of Marcellus, nor 
one of Pompey, nor three thermce (public warm-baths), nor 



244 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

four forums, nor the lofty temple of Capitoline Jupiter, nor 
that of the Flavian family shining in close proximity to the 
heavens. How often do I imagine you, in your moments of 
fatigue, to say to Quirinus (founder of Rome), Keep what is 
your own, give me back what is mine (inuendo, why do you 
stay at Rome during this season, instead of repairing to your 
villa at Anxur, where you may give back to Romulus his 
fine edifices, throw off your toga, and wear only your tunic), 
—Lib. x. Ep. li. 

(ii.) 

Whilst I devoted myself to the agreeable recesses of 
Anxur, and the neighbouring Baia3, and a dwelling-house on 
the sea-shore (litoream domum), and the fresh-water lakes, 
and the groves, in which inharmonious grasshoppers never 
sing during the season of Cancer (July), I then had leisure, 
along with you, Frontinus, to cultivate the learned Muses. 
Now great Rome wears me out. Here, where I feed on the 
produce of suburban fields, and place my lares near yours, 
sacred Romulus ! when have I day of my own ? I am tossed 
to and fro by the waves of the city ; and my life is wasted 
in profitless toil. Love is not testified solely by frequenting 
the mansions of the rich by day and by night ; nor is such 
an occupation worthy of a poet. I swear by the sacred 
Muses, and all the divinities of heaven, that I love thee, 
Frontinus, not the less, because my present distance from 
you (of Rome from Anxur) disables me from displaying my 
attachment by officious salutations. — Lib. x. Ep. lviii. 

Addison, in his Travels in Italy, has thus translated part of the 
first of the above epigrams : 

Ye warbling fountains and ye shady trees, 

Where Anxur feels the cool refreshing breeze 

Blown off the sea, and all the dewy strand 

Lies cover'd with a smooth un sinking (solidum) sand! 



VII.] TOPOGRAPHY. 245 

He observes that " the ruins of Anxur mark out the pleasant situa- 
tion in which that town formerly stood; it was planted on the 
mountain where we now see Terracina, and by reason of the breezes 
that came off the sea, and the height of its situation, was one of the 
summer retirements of the ancient Romans." 

The first part of the last of the above epigrams is thus rendered 
by Addison; among the numerous reasons that have been assigned 
for the singular conduct of the grasshoppers, he alone has ascribed it to 
the untainted air; his cool shore may appear not to express Martial's 
litoream domum, which seems to have reference to those structures 
that, Horace says, made the fishes think that the sea was growing too 
small for them, and the ruins of which are now rowed over, as de- 
scribed by Rogers, in his Italy. 

On the cool shore, near Baia's gentle seats, 

I lay retired in Anxur's soft retreats; 

Whose silver lakes, with verdant shadows crown'd, 

Disperse a grateful dullness all around. 

The grasshopper avoids the untainted air, 

Nor, in the heat of summer, ventures there. 

Eustace makes the following allusions to the ancient town of Anxur: 
" The rocky eminence of Anxur now rose full before us, and, as we 
approached, presented to our view a variety of steep cliffs. On the 
side of one of these craggy hills stands the old town of Terracina; the 
new town descends gradually towards the beach and lines the shore. 
On the ridge of the mountain stood the ancient Anxur, and on the 
summit, immediately over the sea, rose the temple of Jupiter {Jupiter 
Anxuris). On this pinnacle still remain two vast squares, consisting 
each of a number of arches, and forming, probably, the substructure 
of the temple of Jupiter and that of A polio. The colonnades of these 
two temples, the colour of the rock which supported them, and the 
lofty walls and towers of the city which enclosed them and crowned 
the cliff, gave Anxur the splendour and majesty so often alluded to by 
the poets." He has thus translated the lines on the double prospect 
of sea and river, Qui videt hinc puppes Jluminis, inde maris : 

Ye groves, ye fountains, and thou sea-washed strand, 
And Anxur glittering in the glassy tide, 

Whence the tall barks are viewed on either hand, 
Or on the salt sea's wave, or river smooth that glide. 



246 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. 



CLXXII. 

NARNI (NARNIA). 

Narnia ! situate on an almost inaccessible hill, and en- 
circled by a white river fed from sulphurous streams, why 
does it delight you so often and so long to detain from me 
my friend Quinctus ; whereby, through the loss of such a 
neighbour, my Nomentanian villa is of no service to me, its 
value consisting in the society of my friend? But, now, at 
length, spare Quinctus to me, nor abuse your possession 
of him: so may you never be deprived of the enjoyment 
of your bridge ! — Lib. vn. Ep. xcn. 

Addison, in describing Rami (which is situated on the site of the 
ancient Narnia), mentions Augustus's bridge, that stands half a mile 
from the town, and which, he says, is one of the stateliest ruins in 
Italy ; he notices that there was, when he visited the spot, an arch 
unbroken, the broadest he had ever seen. He considers that, " with- 
out doubt, these ruins belonged to the bridge of Narni, which Martial 
mentions." Of the concluding couplet of Martial's epigram, Addison 
gives the following version, with an indifferent rhyme : 

Preserve my better part, and spare my friend, 
So, Narni, may thy bridge for ever stand! 

Eustace, in his description of Narni, writes, " The ancient Roman 
Colony of Narni stands on the summit of a very high and steep hill, 
whose sides are clothed with olives, and whose base is washed by the 
Nera (anciently Nar), of a milky colour. At the foot of the hill we 
alighted, in order to visit the celebrated bridge of Augustus: this 
noble row of arches thrown over the stream and the defile in which 
it rolls, in order to open a communication between the two moun- 
tains, and to facilitate the approach to the town, was formed of vast 
blocks of white stone fitted together without cement. All the piers 
and one arch still remain; the other arches are fallen, and their fall 
seems to have been occasioned by the sinking of the middle pier." 
Eustace cites a passage from Claudian illustrative of, what Martial 
notices, the peculiar colour of the river, which is thus translated : 



VII.] TOPOGRAPHY. 247 

Hard by a river of unwonted hue, 

From which her name th' adjacent city drew, 

Beneath a shady forest flows; confin'd 

By wood-crown'd hills, its whitening waters wind. 

Lord Coke says that Tadcaster contains nothing worthy of the 
Muses, except its bridge. England is thus anciently described, 

Anglia, mons, fons, pons, ecclesia, foemina, lana. 



CLXXIII. 

KAVENNA. 

(I.) 
A cunning vintner at Ravenna lately cheated me; when 
I asked for wine and water, he sold me sheer wine. — Lib. in. 

Ep. LVII. 

(ii.) 

I would rather have a cistern than a vineyard at Ravenna; 
water is so much dearer there than wine. — Lib. in. Ep. lvi. 

(in.) 
The soft asparagus which grows at the maritime (cequorea) 
Ravenna is not more pleasant to the taste than the bundle 
of wild asparagus herewith presented. — Lib. xin. Ep. xxi. 
Addison, in his Travels in Italy, translates the first epigram thus : 
By a Ravenna vintner once betray'd, 
So much for wine and water mix'd I paid; 
But when I thought the purchas'd liquor mine, 
The rascal fobb'd me off with only wine. 
And the second epigram thus : 

Lodg'd at Ravenna (water sells so dear), 
A cistern to a vineyard I prefer. 
He observes that fountain-water was still very scarce at Ravenim, 
and that it was probably much more so when the sea was within its 
neighbourhood : it was, when he travelled, four miles from the Adri- 
atic, but had been formerly the most famous of all the Roman ports. 



248 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

With regard to the third epigram, Rabelais makes one of his 
characters tell another that, by certain quackeries, he would engage 
to produce the best asparagus in the world, not even excepting that 
of Ravenna. Dr Malkin, in reference to this epigram, observes that 
Pliny mentions, in more passages than one, the pleasantness and pro- 
lific character of the gardens of Ravenna. 



CLXXIV. 

FORMIC (MOLA). 



sweet shore of temperate Formise ! Apollinaris, when 
he is able to fly from the city of ruthless Mars, and can lay 
aside his wearisome cares, prefers you to every spot on earth. 
Tibur, Tusculum, Algidum, Prseneste, Antium, the promontory 
of Gaeta, the grove of Lsenis, the river Liris, Salmacis near 
the Lucrine lake, are summer-retreats extolled by many ; but 
Apollinaris prefers Formise to them all. Here the sea a is not 
tossed by storms, but its surface is placidly rippled by the 
zephyrs. The air, however, is not so languid, but that it 
gently wafts the painted galleys : it may be compared to that 
raised by the fan of a damsel seeking to create an artificial 
coolness in the heat of the day. Do you wish to enjoy the 
amusement of fishing, you are not obliged to put out to sea, 
but, whilst you recline on your couch, you may watch the 
fishes to a great depth as they drag your line. If ever 
a storm, though rare, be raised, you have a fish-pond, which 
may mock it, whilst from a table of its own it supplies you 
with turbot and pike : delicate lampreys swim to their mas- 
ter ; a nomenclator cites your familiar mullets to appear, and 
they obediently answer his summons. But how rarely does 
Rome allow of such enjoyments! How few Formian days can 
any one immersed in the business of the city promise himself! 



VII.] TOPOGRAPHY. 249 

Happy vine-dressers, and country stewards ! these rural luxu- 
ries are prepared for your masters; they wait upon you. — 
Lib. x. Ep. xxx. 

The above description of a villa at Formise (which is illustrative 
of Pliny's and Statius's descriptions of Roman villas) is rendered the 
more interesting to modern readers from the circumstance that Cicero 
was assassinated in the walks of a grove when attempting to escape 
to the sea from his Formian villa. Eustace visited the reputed ruins 
of this villa, which, agreeably to several accounts, stood about a mile 
from the sea-shore, at which spot close to the road on both sides the 
remains of ancient walls are scattered over the fields, and are half 
covered with vines, olives, and hedges. Mola was the spot where 
Tasso was complimented by banditti, as related in Rogers's Italy : 
When along the shore, 
And by the path, that, wandering on its way, 
Leads to the fatal grove where Tully fell, 
He came, and they withdrew. 

The part of the above epigram which has chiefly been noticed by 
modern writers, is that relating to the docility of the fish. In an 
epigram on Domitian's fish-pond, Martial writes that the emperor's 
fish had names, and each came as it was summoned, and that they 
licked the emperor's hand : 

Qui norunt dominum, manumque lambunt 
Illam, qua nihil est in orbe majus. 

Melmoth, in the notes to his Cicero De Amicitia, after mentioning 
a store-pond of sea-water constructed by Lucullus, who perforated a 
mountain for the purpose, contiguous to his villa at Naples, observes, 
" Martial, in describing the elegant villa of Apollinaris, on the sea- 
coast, among other voluptuous accommodations with which it was 
furnished, celebrates, with particular encomium, his piscinae, or store- 
ponds ; 

In vain rude ^Eolus deforms 

Old Ocean's brow with rising storms; 
Thy splendid board, secure, defies 
The angry main, and threat'ning skies. 
Within thy ample bason see 
Each nobler fish that swims the sea. 



250 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [OH. 

The stately sturgeon, Ocean's pride, 
The mugil, fond in sands to hide, 
The turbot, and the mullet old, 
Are pastur'd in the liquid fold. 
Trained to the summons, lo! they all 
Rise at the feeder's well-known call." 

It may be suspected that Ben Jonson, in the following passage of 
his poem on Penshurst, was imitating Martial rather than describing 
what he had actually seen : 

And if the high-swoln Medway fail thy dish, 

Thou hast thy ponds that pay thee tribute fish. 

Fat aged carps that run into thy net, 

And pikes now weary their own kind to eat, 

As loth the second draught or cast to stay, 

Officiously at first themselves betray; 

Bright eels that emulate them, and leap on land, 

Before the fisher, or unto his hand. 

Mr Hoare, the continuator of Eustace, in noticing the ancient Via 

leading from Formiae (Mola) to Caieta (Gaeta), writes, that it "affords 

a continual succession of antique fabrics, and proves the very great 

population of this delightful bay, so well described by the poet 

Martial, 

O temperatse dulce Formise littus?" 



CLXXV. 

JANICULUM. 



The few acres of Julius Martialis which are more produc- 
tive than the gardens of the Hesperides, lie on the slope of the 
long brow of the Janiculum hill : secluded recesses of ample 
extent hang over the adjacent eminences, and the summit of 
the ground, which is level, save where there is a small hillock, 
enjoys an unusually pure atmosphere; it shines with a bright- 
ness peculiar to itself, whilst a mist covers the valleys under- 



VII. J TOPOGRAPHY. 251 

neath. The handsome turrets of a lofty villa gently approach 
the serene stars. Hence may be seen the seven dominant hills, 
and a panoramic view may be taken of the ivhole of Borne. 
Also there may be hence discerned the Albanian and Tus- 
culan hills, and all the cool suburbs of the city, ancient 
Fidene, little Rubra, the orchard of Perennee, stained, ac- 
cording to tradition, with a virgin's blood ; and hence may be 
viewed the travellers of the Flaminian and Salarian ways, the 
chariots only not being heard, lest the noise of the wheels 
should interrupt bland slumbers. Neither is sleep broken by 
nautical bawlings, nor by the clamour of the rowers of barges, 
although the Milvian bridge is nigh, and ships are seen flying 
along the sacred Tiber. This, whether you call it a country- 
seat, or rather, a mansion, is improved by its owner ; you will 
suppose it your own, such is the owner's liberal, ungrudging, 
and courteous hospitality. You would believe that you were 
admitted to the pious penates of Alcinous, or of Molorchus 
lately enriched by the emperor with a temple. You, now, 
who despise small possessions, cultivate Tibur or Prseneste 
with a hundred spades, and deliver the sloping Setia (for 
profit alone) to a single cultivator, whilst, in my judgment, 
the few acres of Julius Martialis are to be preferred to them 
all. — Lib. iv. Ep. lxiv. 

Pope, in his imitation of Horace's Satire, Book n. Satire n., in 
which there is nothing about a man supposing his friend's house to be 
his own {tuam putabis), may not improbably have had reference to 
Martial's climax of hospitality : 

My lands are sold, my father's house is gone ; 
I'll hire another's, is not that my own? 
And yours, my friends? through whose wide opening gate 
None comes too early, none departs too late. 
The passage in the above epigram relative to a panoramic view of 

Rome, 

Hinc septem dominos videre montes, 

Et totam licet sestimare Romam, 



252 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

is taken as a motto for a map of Ancient Rome restored ; a copy of 
which map is affixed to the wall of one of the school-rooms of Eton 
College. 

Eustace, in describing the residence of Queen Christina at the 
Corsini Palace, mentions that the garden runs along and almost 
reaches the summit of the Janiculum. He observes that the garden 
was open to the public, " who, as they wander over it, may enjoy a 
complete view of Rome extended over the opposite hills ; a view as 
classical as it is beautiful, because remarked and celebrated in classic 
times." He then cites a portion of the above epigram with the fol- 
lowing version : 

My Martial's small, but lovely lands 

On the green slope that wide expands, 

Of fair Janiculum recline; 

Th' Hesperian gardens less divine. 

There many a cool retreat is found, 

Far rais'd o'er all the hills around; 

The level summit, mounting high, 

Enjoys an ever tranquil sky; 

With suns their own those regions glow, 

Though clouds may hide the vales below, 

Thy beauteous villas toward the skies 

With gentle elevation rise; 

Hence the sev'n hills, and hence is seen 

Whate'er great Rome can boast, the world's triumphant Queen. 



CLXXVI. 
COLISJEUM. 



Let barbarous Memphis be silent concerning her miracu- 
lous pyramids ; nor let Babylon boast of what can be achieved 
by assiduity of labour; nor let the effeminate Ionians vaunt 
the honours of the temple of Diana of Ephesus ; nor let the 
frequented altar of Jupiter Amnion display its horned Deity ; 



VII.] TOPOGRAPHY. 253 

nor let the Carians extol to the skies their mausoleum 
hanging in the empty air. Let every achievement of human 
industry yield to Caesar's amphitheatre. Let Fame henceforth 
talk of a single work instead of all others (imam pro cunctis 
fama loquatur opus). — Sped. t. 

Eustace, after describing the Colisseum as it appears in the present 
day, observes, "Never did human art present to the eye a fabric 
so well calculated, by its size and form, to surprise and delight." 
Then, after conducting his reader through the vast mass of ruins, he 
writes, " Martial prefers, perhaps with justice, this amphitheatre to 
all the prodigies of architecture known in his time." He then quotes 
the above epigram, (written, probably, more in a spirit of flattery than 
from any judgment on the subject), with the following version: 

Why sing the wonders of th' Egyptian shore? 

Let far-famed Babylon be prais'd no more; 

Let not Ionia vaunt Diana's fane; 

* * * * * * 

Nor let the Carian town exalt so high 

Its mausoleum, hanging in the sky; 

In Caesar's amphitheatre are shown 

Those rival glories all combined in one: 

Let Fame henceforth her clam'rous tongue confine 

To sing the beauties of that dome divine. 

The learned reader will judge whether the distich sent by the 
Public Orator at Cambridge to King James, in return for his present 
of the Basilicon Doron, may, possibly, have been suggested by Mar- 
tial's epigram; the Orator sets a single book above the Vatican and 
Bodleian libraries. 

Quid Vaticanum Bodleianumque objicis, hospes? 
Unicus est nobis bibliotheca liber. 

In a like strain Santeuil compliments Paris on its buildings : 

Jam non invidendos 
Objiciat tibi, Roma, colles. 



* 



254 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 



CLXXVII. 
PALATITJM. 

Smile, Caesar! at the miraculous pyramids of Egyptian 
kings ; let barbarous Memphis be silent about its eastern edi- 
fices. How small a proportion do such Mareotic structures 
bear to the Palatium, than which the Sun beholds nothing 
more conspicuous in the whole world! Its seven towers 
appear to rise aloft together, like seven mountains; Ossa, 
though augmented by the weight of Pelion, was smaller. 
Your Palatium has its pinnacles encircled by the bright 
stars, and raised so high in the air as to continue serene, 
whilst thunders roll from clouds below: they are suffused 
with the rays of Phoebus before the rest of the world is 
illumined, and earlier even than Circe (a mountain called 
Daughter of the Sun) beholds her father at his uprising. 
Yet, Augustus! this palace, which strikes the stars with its 
head, is equal to Heaven, but is less than its Lord {Par do- 
mus est coelo, sed minor est domino). — Lib. viii. Ep. xxxvi. 

Ben Jonson, among his devices for the king's entertainment on 
passing to his coronation, has for an inscription on the frieze over the 
gate of Fenchurch, where the king entered the city of London, on his 
way from the Tower to Westminster, 

Par Domus Hsec Coelo, 
Sed Minor Est Domino. 

As to London being the house of the king, Ben Jonson explains 
this inscription by two others which accompany it, viz. Londinium 
and Camera Regis, with regard to which he notices that Camden says, 
in his Britannia, that London acquired the title of Camera Regis im- 
mediately after the Conquest, which " by the indulgence of succeeding 
princes, hath been hitherto continued." 

Extravagant as the description of the Palatium may appear, it is 
rivalled by Martial's eulogy on the temple Flavice Gentis, erected by 
Domitian for the deification of his family. Martial says of this build- 



VII.] TOPOGRAPHY. 255 

ing, Invicta quidquid condidit manus, coslum est. Waller writes in 
a like vein of royal edifices, as on the rebuilding of Somerset House, 

But what new mine this work supplies? 
Can such a pile from ruin rise? 
This, like the first creation, shows 
As if at your command it rose. 

And on the restoration of St Paul's Cathedral, 

Troy wall'd so high, 
Th' Atrides might as well have forc'd the sky. 
So proud a fabric to devotion giv'n, 
At once it threatens and obliges Heaven. 

Santeuil, the most eminent writer of Latin poetry among the 
French, would seem to have transferred a compliment in the above 
epigram from Domitian to Louis XIY. : in an inscription for the 
Louvre the poet writes, 

Attonitis inhians oculis quam suspicis, hospes, 
Magna quidem, Domino non tamen cequa domus. 

" Stranger to Paris ! you gape and stare at this large mansion ; 
yet, it is not equal to its Lord." 



CLXXVIII. 

NERO'S PALACE. 



Here, where the Colossus, adorned with rays, takes a 
near view of the stars, and the lofty theatrical machines are 
elevated in the middle of the way, shone formerly the envy- 
moving palace of the savage Nero ; the whole city thus ap- 
pearing as if one house. Here, where the venerable pile of 
the conspicuous amphitheatre is erected, was formerly Nero's 
lake. Here, where we admire the hot-baths so rapidly built 
by the emperor Titus, a proud pleasure-ground had deprived 
the poor of their dwellings. Where the Claudian portico 
spreads its broad shade, was the last remnant of the falling 



256 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

palace. Rome is restored to itself; and, under your pre- 
sidency, O Csesar! what was the exclusive delight of the 
emperor has become that of the people. — Sped. 11. 

It is related that Nero erected his own statue for the Colossus, 
spoken of in the above epigram, and that Vespasian struck off Nero's 
head, and put on one of Apollo with rays. The pegmata or machines 
which were made to rise and to sink again, were dragged up and 
down the via sacra on public occasions. Nero, in this epigram, is 
called ferus; in one on the banishment of Seneca, fur ens; in another, 
on Lucan's death, crudelis. His Golden House, and colossal statue, 
120 feet in height, have been described by Suetonius, who men- 
tions an early pasquinade made upon the Domus Aurea: 

Roma domus net; Yeios migrate Quirites! 
Si non et Yeios occupat ista domus ; 

which his translator renders, 

Rome will be all one house; to Veii fly! 
If that house move not thither by and by. 

In Canina's Vicissitudes of the Eternal City (by Whiteside), there 
are several references to the above epigram of Martial, as explaining 
the topography of ancient Rome. He writes of the Colisseum, " This 
amphitheatre was placed on the site of the celebrated lake of Nero, 
as is proved by the well-known lines of Martial on the spectacles." 
In a note, in which four lines of the above epigram are quoted, he 
refers to passages from Suetonius and Tacitus, which they illustrate. 

Canina states that there exist traces of a portico reaching from 
the Colisseum to the baths of Titus mentioned in the above epigram : 
this communication is shown by ancient medals. He observes that 
Suetonius takes notice of Titus having built his baths, which he pre- 
sented to the Roman people, in a short space of time {velocia munera) : 
various ruins of these baths, he says, are found in the vicinity of the 
Colisseum. He refers to Martial as showing that Titus's baths occu- 
pied part of the splendid plain that formed a portion of the Golden 
House of Nero. It was among the ruins of Martial's velocia munera 
that the statue of the Laocoon was discovered. 



VII.] TOPOGRAPHY. 257 

CLXXIX. 

STREETS OF ROME. 

The audacious huckster had abstracted the whole city, 
and had left no place outside of his own threshold for 
walking. Germanicus ! (Domitian, conqueror of Germany) you 
commanded the attenuated streets to amplify in size; and 
thus what was recently a narrow passage has become a high- 
way. There are no longer columns around which flagons are 
chained. The Pra3tor is not compelled to walk in the middle 
of the mud ; nor is the encased razor any longer drawn out in 
the middle of a crowd ; nor does the smutty cook's-shop en- 
tirely block up a street. The barber, the victualler, the cook, 
the butcher, confine themselves to their own premises. That is 
now Rome which lately was a large tavern. — Lib. vn. Ep. lx. 

Becker, in a note to his Gallus, writes of the above epigram, that 
the tabernce built up against the houses in Rome had, by degrees, so 
narrowed the streets, that Domitian caused a decree to be issued 
against them, and every inhabitant was confined to the area of his 
own house : and he says that " Martial, his ever-ready flatterer, had 
immortalized the interdict by an epigram interesting to us, as it con- 
tributes so much towards a picture of the appearance of the Roman 
streets. We see from it, he observes, that wine was sold not only 
inside the tabernce, but also in front of them; and that, probably, at 
the pillars of the porticos tables were placed with bottles, fastened by 
chains, to prevent their being purloined." Of the throngs in the 
streets, in the reign of Augustus, he writes : " This motley multitude 
kept passing through streets which were rendered disagreeably narrow 
by a numerous cluster of shops choking them up. For hucksters and 
merchants of all sorts, artists in hair and salve-sellers, butchers and 
pastry-cooks, but above all, vintners, had built their booths far into 
the streets, so that you might even see tables arranged along the 
piers and pillars, and covered with bottles, which were, however, cau- 
tiously fastened by chains, lest perchance they might be niched." 
MART. s 



258 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. VII. 



Martial takes many walks through the streets of Rome, with his 
sal uters, supper-hunters, and even his own books, in which his de- 
scriptions are sufficiently minute, both of localities and of their so- 
journers and frequenters, to furnish ample materials to an antiquarian 
Gay, for a Roman Trivia. A visitor at Rome, with Martial as his 
cicerone, might doubtless trace all the principal streets of the ancient 
city, and re-people them in imagination with the peculiar classes of 
persons who lived in them, or resorted to them, respectively, at the 
several hours of the day, what times they frequently observed to one 
another, as Martial passed along, " Hie est."" 



CHAPTER VIII. 
MOVEABLES. 



The classical antiquary is indebted to Martial more than 
to any other ancient writer for the particulars of the move- 
able property of the Romans ; in his epigrams will be found a 
multitude of details on this subject that are often blended 
with wit, or with interesting information concerning Roman 
maimers. All the books of Martial afford contributions appli- 
cable to this head ; as, for instance, where he charges a man 
with fraudulently increasing the apparent value of his house, 
by gaudeously furnishing it; or wishes a thief would steal 
a lady's pearls, which she called her brothers and sisters, and 
by which she swore. But it is chiefly in the thirteenth and 
fourteenth books that we are to look for the ordinary contents 
of Roman houses and shops, pet animals, works of art or curi- 
osity, the products of markets, farms, dairies and vineyards. 

The thirteenth book of Martial is entitled Xenia, consist- 
ing of one hundred and twenty-seven distichs sent to friends 
or returned by them, and accompanying presents during the 
Saturnalia, or on birth-days, new-years day, recovery from 
sickness, or other like occasions. Martial, throughout his 
books, is witty upon the subject of such presents; as, for 
instance, in one epigram, he protests that a particular indi- 
vidual must have been born at least twice ; in another, that a 
patron had sent him Saturnalian gifts which were carried by 
eight tall Syrian slaves, but the value of which might have 

S2 



260 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. 



been brought by a little boy, in his pocket. In a prefatory 
epigram to the Xenia, Martial confesses that he himself com- 
monly sent the distichs, without the presents : 

H&ec licet hospitibus pro munere disticha mittas, 
Si tibi tarn rams, quam mini, nummus erit. 

The fourteenth book is entitled Apophoreta, consisting of 
two hundred and twenty-three distichs, accompanying pre- 
sents to guests at entertainments, which were determined by 
lot; this was a species of diversion used chiefly during the 
Saturnalia. Martial calls his distichs, in this and the preceding 
book, nuces, or nuts for amusement, during the five days when 
all Rome was like a school-boy in his holidays. 

The modern uses of the epigrams in the present Chapter 
have been various, but have principally had reference to the 
subject of Roman antiquities. Were all the instances to be 
noticed in which Martial has been quoted by modern Roman 
antiquarians for the elucidation of that portion of their in- 
quiries which relates to moveables, this work would be in- 
creased to an inconvenient size, besides waxing tedious to the 
general reader. It is only a particular class of readers who 
would feel an interest in Martial's enumeration of the various 
uses of the mantle called an endromis, or in his information 
concerning the materials of Roman toothpicks. A reader 
must, indeed, be ingenious in the discovery of " sermons in 
stones," who could draw, with Dr Malkin, a moral from Mar- 
tial's distich on an ivory box, which, the poet says, ought to 
be used for gold, a wooden box being good enough for silver ; 
or could perceive that Martial is " happily lashing the vicissi- 
tudes of fashion," where, in a distich accompanying the pre- 
sent of a lettuce, he asks, as if of some editor of Notes and 
Queries, why it then came at the beginning, instead of, as 
anciently, the end of a feast : 

Claudere quae coenas lactuca solebat avorum, 
Die mihi, cur nostras inchoat ilia dapes? 



VIII.] MOVEABLES. 261 

It has been endeavoured to select epigrams appertaining 
to Roman moveables, of which a modern use has been made, 
and of which the original epigram, or at least the modern use 
of it, may be interesting to other persons than antiquarians 
and auctioneers. 



CLXXX. 

APOPHORETA. 



Whilst the Knight and the governing Senator are delight- 
ing in their syntheses (having laid aside the toga), and a cap 
becomes our Jupiter (Domitian), and whilst the slave, as he 
rattles his dice-box, has no fear of the aedile, since he observes 
that the pools of water are nearly congealed (in December), 
accept lots designed alternately for a rich and for a poor man, 
that each may give suitable prizes to his guests. That my 
verses for this purpose are trifling and ludicrous, who does 
not know, and who would have the effrontery to deny ? But 
what, Saturn, could I do better on your banqueting days, 
which your son gave you in exchange for heaven? Do 
you wish me to write of Thebes, of Troy, of the wicked My- 
cenae ? You reply, " Sport with nuts ; I am unwilling to lose 
my nuts." Reader! you can finish a book of tins nature 
wherever you are; each subject is completed in two verses. — 
Lib. xiv. Ep. i. 

The details of the Roman Apophoreta may, perhaps, appear to 
have suggested to Sir E. Lytton his representation of the drawing 
of lots for presents among the guests at a dinner a la mode at Pom- 
peii : he writes that Clodius, the host, " motioned to one of the minis- 
tri, and whispering him, the slave went out and presently returned 
with a small bowl containing various tablets carefully sealed, and 
apparently exactly similar. Each guest was to purchase one of these 



262 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

at the nominal price of the lowest piece of silver, and the sport of 
this lottery (which was the favourite diversion of Augustus who intro- 
duced it) consisted in the inequality and sometimes the incongruity 
of the prizes, the nature and amount of which were specified within 
the tablets. For instance, the poet, with a wry face, drew one of 
his own poems (no physician ever less willingly swallowed his own 
draught); the warrior drew a case of bodkins, which gave rise to 
certain novel witticisms relative to Hercules and the .distaff; the 
widow Fulvia obtained a large drinking-cup ; Julia a gentleman's 
buckle, and Lepidus a lady's patch-box. The most appropriate lot 
was drawn by the gambler Clodius, who reddened with anger on 
being presented with a set of cogged dice. A certain damp was 
thrown upon the gaiety which these various lots created, by an acci- 
dent that was considered ominous : Glaucus drew the most valuable 
of all the prizes, a small marble statue of Fortune, of Grecian work- 
manship; in handing it to him, the slave suffered it to drop, and 
it broke to pieces." 

Among Martial's Apophoreta are, in accordance with the above 
scene, several statuettes, varieties of dice, golden and other bodkins, 
buckles, drinking-cups : he also furnishes precedents of personalities 
in the shape of presents, provided, as was probably the case, the lots 
were sometimes packed; as thus, a distich on a dentrifice, signifying 
that it was not meant for false teeth : 

Quid mecum est tibi? me puella sumat, 
Emptos non soleo polire dentes. 

So one on a Bhytium, addressed to a bow-legged man, signifying that 
he might wash his feet in it; for which species of drinking-cup the 
reader must be referred to the pictures of two vessels of this kind 
found at Pompeii, resembling horns, in Dr Smith's Dictionary : 

Cum sint crura tibi simulent quae cornua lunse, 
In rhytio poteras, Phoebe, lavare pedes. 

And one upon a pauperized lawyer who scribbled verses, accompany- 
ing the present of a bullock's heart, an emblem of stupidity : 

Pauper causidicus nullos referentia nummos 
Carmina cum scribas; accipe cor quod habes! 

Becker, in his Gallus, gives many quotations from Martial re- 
specting the synthesis; he says that it was never worn in public 



VIII.] 



MOVEABLES. 



263 



except during the Saturnalia. For the use of this dress during all 
seasons, at meals, and an affectation in wearing it, he refers to a 
witty epigram of Martial, in which it is said that Zoilus, at a supper 
he gave, changed his synthesis eleven times, complaining of perspira- 
tion, whereupon the poet observes, that a single synthesis (being all 
he had) was very conducive to coolness. Frigus enim magnum syn- 
thesis unafacit. 



CLXXXL 

BAZAAR. 



(I.) 

Mamurra wandered much and long among the shops near 
the Septa where golden Rome tosses about her wealth. He 
gazed on the slaves, not those exposed for sale to people of 
my condition in the open shops, but kept for rich connoisseurs 
in private apartments. Satisfied with this sight, he called for 
the round tables (orbes) to be uncovered, and those of ivory 
to be taken down from their high shelves, and to be displayed 
to him. Measuring four times a liexaclinon (dinner-couch for 
six persons), made of tortoiseshell, he lamented that it was 
not of a size large enough for his cedar table (eitrd). He con- 
sulted his nose as to whether vessels were of true Corinthian 
brass, and he picked out faults even in your statues, Poly- 
cletus ! He complained that the crystalline vases had a small 
alloy of glass ; he took a marked notice of the myrrhine cups 
(myrrhina), and laid aside ten of them. He pondered long 
upon ancient vases, particularly such as he found ennobled by 
the hand of Mentor. He numbered the green emeralds em- 
bossed in gold, and whatever jewels that hang from a white 
ear (pearls) are in higher estimation. He sought for real sar- 
donyxes on every table, and asked the price of large jaspers. 



264 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. 



At the eleventh hour, when he was on the point of departing, 
he purchased two cups for the price of an as (two farthings 
and an eighth), and (not being attended by a slave) took them 
home in his own hands. — Lib. ix. Ep. lx. 

(ii.) 

Eros grieves as often as he beholds cups of spotted 
myrrha, or noble citron tables, and groans from the bottom 
of his breast, that he cannot buy the whole septa, and take 
them home. How many do the same as Eros, but with dry 
eyes! Most people laugh at his tears, yet cry inwardly. — 
Lib. x. Ep. lxxx. 

The first of the above epigrams is closely copied, and the second 
alluded to, by Becker. " Gallus strode proudly through the streets, 
and, careless of the crowds that beset the forum, entered the shops 
where all the valuables that streamed into Rome from the most 
remote regions lay stored up in rich profusion. These tabemce never 
lacked a number of visitors; they were frequented not only by such 
as really intended to make purchases, but also by those who, full of 
repining at not possessing all the costly articles, devoured them with 
greedy gaze, demanded to see every thing, made offers for some of the 
goods, and ordered others to be put aside, as if chosen; whilst others 
pointed out slight defects, or regretted that they did not quite suit 
their purpose, and after all went away without purchasing any thing 
beyond mere trifles. In the tabemce of the slave- merchants especially, 
there were persons who, under pretence of becoming purchasers, pene- 
trated into the interior, where the most beautiful slaves were kept in 
order that they might be out of sight of ordinary visitors. Passing 
these tabemce, Gallus entered one where costly furniture was exposed 
to sale. Expensive cedar tables, carefully covered, and supported by 
strong pillars, veneered with ivory ; dinner-couches of bronze, richly 
adorned with silver and gold, and inlaid with costly tortoiseshell. 
Some one who hardly meant to be a purchaser was just getting the 
covers removed from some of the cedar tables by the attendant, but 
he found that they were not spotted to his taste. A hexaclinon of 
tortoiseshell seemed, however, to attract him amazingly, but after 
measuring it three or four times, he said with a sigh, that ' it was, 



VIII.] MOVEABLES. 265 

alas! a few inches too small for the cedar table for which he had 
intended it.' Gallus, in his turn, looked over the stock, but seeing 
nothing adapted to a present for Lycoris, left the shop, and "went into 
another, where precious vessels of Corinthian brass, statues by Poly- 
cletus and Lysippus, and similar objects were displayed. He thence 
proceeded to that of a merchant, who kept for sale the best selection 
of gorgeous trinkets. Beautiful vessels of gold and silver, goblets of 
precious stones, or genuine myrrha, ingenious manufactures in glass, 
and many other precious wares, were exhibited in such profusion that 
it was difficult to choose." — -Some details in Becker's septa are here 
omitted, because inapplicable to Martial's epigrams, which he men- 
tions, in a note, are the groundwork of his description. He also 
praises Martial's notice, in the second of the above epigrams, of the 
sorrowful feelings which arose in the minds of many on beholding 
these displays of finery. 

Milton may seem to have had in view Martial's enumeration of 
Roman articles of luxury in the above and other epigrams, where he 
draws a tableau of Borne in his Paradise Regained, thus : 

Their sumptuous gluttonies and gorgeous feasts 
On citron tables or Atlantic stone, 
Their wines of Setia, Cales, and Falern, 
Chios and Crete, and how they quaff in gold, 
Crystal and myrrhine cups, embossed with gems 
And studs of pearl. 

Some of Milton's commentators say that there is no authority for 
Atlantic stone being used for tables, but that the poet was probably 
misled by an imperfect recollection of Martial's distich on a table 
made of wood from Mount Atlas : 

Accipe felices, Atlantica munera, sylvas, 
Aurea qui dederit dona, minora dabit. 

In reference to tables of this description, Becker, in his description of 
the furniture of Callus's house, writes : "No less were the Tricliniarch 
and his subordinates occupied in the larger saloons, where stood the 
costly' tables of cedar-wood, with pillars of ivory supporting their 
massive orbs, which had, at an immense expense, been conveyed to 
Borne from the primeval woods of Atlas." It would appear that 
Milton had made another mistake, and that the citrum used for tables 



266 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. 



was not the wood of the citron tree, but was of larger magnitude, and 
brought from Mount Atlas. 

As to the embossed and studded cups; mentioned above by Martial 
and Milton, Martial has another epigram, in which he expresses 
astonishment at the number of fingers a cup so adorned must have 
denuded of their gems : 

Gemmatum Scythicis ut luceat ignibus aurum, 
Aspice, quot digitos exuit iste calix! 



CLXXXIL 



ANTIQUES. 



Nothing is more odious than the antiques of old Euctus, 
to which I prefer cups made of Saguntan clay. Thus he 
prates about the smoky images on his silver vessels, leaving 
the wine in them to get vapid, owing to his many words : he 
says, " These were the cups used at the table of Laomedon, 
the obtaining of which for a reward induced Apollo to build 
the walls of Troy with his lyre. With this goblet the fierce 
Rhsetus fought against the Lapithse; you observe that the 
workmanship has been a little damaged by that encounter. 
This double cup is known to have been cast by the orders of 
Nestor : a dove sculptured on one of its handles looks rubbed 
by his thumb. This is the tankard in which Achilles (JEaddes) 
ordered wine to be mixed largely for his friends, and out of 
which he drank it himself unmixed. With this large cup 
the beautiful Dido pledged Bytias at the famous supper she 
gave to her Trojan husband. When you have much admired 
all this anciently-embossed silver, you will be made to drink 
Astyanax (Priam's grandson) in the cups of Priam (new wine 
in old cups). Lib. via. Ep. vi. 



VIII.] MOVEABLES. 267 

Sir Henry Spelman, in his Latin treatise on Icenia (Norfolk, Suf- 
folk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire), mentions a tradition, that 
King John had given to the town of Lynn a sword from his side, and 
also a silver cup, gilt inside, the outside of encaustic, much to be 
admired, and adorned with figures of real gold. The town's-men, he 
writes, consider it " a sacred rite to drink from it wine, though not 
of the choicest kind; they drink, indeed, and do not make libations. 
Many more fell by the cup than by the sword. I may say with 

Martial, 

Hie scyphus est in quo misceri jussit amicis 

Largius Henricides, et bibit ipse merum." 

Henricides is used by Spelman to denote King John, son of Henry II. 
Martial, as is seen, using the word uEacides to denote Achilles. 

Becker has introduced the articles of antiquity mentioned in 
the above epigram, among the furniture of Gallus's house, on the 
authority of Martial. 



CLXXXITI. 
RELIC. 



The fragment which you deem a vile and useless piece of 
Avood was a part of the keel of the Argo, the first ship that 
sailed on the theretofore untried sea. The Cyanean rocks 
and the storms of the Scythian Ocean could not wreck it. 
Ages have conquered it ; but, although it has yielded to the 
force of years, this little relic is more sacred than any ship, 
however safe and entire. — Lib. vn. Ep. xviii. 

It is probable that the fragment of the ship Argo, mentioned in 
the abo've epigram, the Ramenal tree, mentioned by Tacitus, which 
sheltered Romulus and Remus, Romulus's cottage, and similar relics, 
may have assisted in suggesting those relics of the Roman Catholic 
Church, such as pieces of the holy cross, of which Voltaire writes, 



268 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

Ami, la Superstition 
Fit ce present a la Sotise, 
Ne le dis pas a la Kaison, 
Menageons l'honneur de l'Eglise. 

Becker, in his Gallus, after mentioning several objects at Rome 
that were curious on account of their antiquity, writes, "But the 
most remarkable of all was a relic of the keel of the Argo, only a chip, 
it is true ; but who did not transport himself back to the olden days, 
when he saw before him, and could feel this portion of the most 
ancient of ships, and on which, perhaps, Minerva herself had placed 
her hand?" In a note, Becker observes that, in other epigrams, Mar- 
tial ridicules the credulous simplicity which could place faith in 
similar relics, but that he speaks quite seriously on the subject of the 
Argo, which might have been owing to its belonging to some patron 
of distinction, perhaps Domitian. Cowley has several poems on a 
parallel subject, the conversion of part of Drake's ship into a chair. 



CLXXXIV. 

TABLE HEBCULES. 



I lately asked Vindex, whose workmanship and happy 
labour had sculptured his statue of Hercules ? He answered, 
with a smile, as he is wont, and a slight nod, "Poet, don't 
you understand Greek?'' The base of the statue has an 
inscription, which indicates the name of the artist, I read, 
" Of Lysippus/' I took it for a work of Phidias. — Lib. ix. 
Ep. XLV. 

The above epigram may have suggested the inscription on a 
pedestal of a statue, which Addison saw at Milan, of St Bartholomew, 
newly flayed, with his skin hanging over his shouders. " They have 
inscribed," he writes, " this verse on the pedestal, to show the value 
they have for the workman : 

Non me Praxiteles, sed Marcus fecit Agrati. 



VIII.] MOVEABLES. 269 

Lest at the sculptor doubtfully you guess, 
'Tis Marc Agrati, not Praxiteles.'.' 
The statue which is the subject of the above epigram is elsewhere 
celebrated by Martial in a different spirit from that in which he ridi- 
cules the antiques of Euctus. He tells us that it had belonged to Alex- 
ander the Great, then to Hannibal, and afterwards to Sylla, whom it 
compelled to lay down his dictatorship. Statius has a long poem on 
the same statue, which he calls JEJpitrapezios. The figure was seated 
on a lion's skin, was of bronze, holding, in one hand, a goblet, in the 
other a club ; the face was very cheerful ; the size of the statue was 
not quite a foot high; it was placed on Vindex's supper-table: 

Hsec inter, festse Genius tutelaque mensse, 
Amphitryoniades. 

Sir E. Lytton has observed, in his Last Days of Pompeii, that 
"the modern ornaments of epergne and plateau were, among the 
Romans, supplied by images of the gods wrought in bronze, ivory and 
silver." 



CLXXXV. 

MENTAL PORTRAIT. 



CLecilius ! you ask whose countenance is represented in 
that picture, which is worshipped with violets and roses? 
Such was Marcus Antonius Primus, in his middle age. Now, 
in his old age, he beholds, in this picture, what were his 
youthful features. Would that art could have represented 
the mind and the morals of my friend: for thus the world 
could not exhibit a picture of more beauty! — Lib. x. Ep. 

XXXII. 

The reader may, probably, be of opinion, that the above epigram 
was the model of Ben Jonson's verses written under the engraved 
picture of Shakspere in the first edition of his collected works; par- 
ticularly when Jonson's familiarity with the writings of Martial is 
considered : 



270 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. 



This figure which thou here seest put 

It was for gentle Shakspere cut. 

Wherein the graver had a strife 

With nature to outdo the life: 

O, could he but have drawn his wit 

As well in brass, as he has hit 

His face! the print would then surpass 

All that was ever writ in brass. 

But since it Cannot, Reader, look 

Not on his picture, but his book! 

There are many epigrams of Martial on statues and pictures, 
which, for want of any modern use, are omitted in this work, but 
which are by no means destitute of modern interest, as, for instance, 
the epigrams concerning Polycletus's Juno, the bust of Socrates, an 
encaustic painting of Phaethon. In Martial is to be found an ex- 
pression which has been made, by a modern Italian poet, the point 
of an admired epigram on Timomachus's picture of Medea, ending 
Vult, non vult, natos perdere et ipsa suos. Martial has it : 

Vult, non vult, dare Galla mihi: nee dicere possum, , 
Quod vult, et non vult, quid sibi Galla velit. 



CLXXXVI. 

PICTURE OF A LAP-DOG. 



Issa is more frolicsome that the sparrow of Catullus : 
Issa is purer than the kiss of a turtle-dove : Issa is more 
bland than every damsel : Issa is more precious than Indian 
gems : Issa is the delight of Publius. If her master com- 
plains, Issa murmurs an echo to his voice ; grieving when 
he is sad : rejoicing when he is merry. She lies couched 
upon his neck, and there slumbers with a noiseless breath. 
Lest fatal destiny should snatch her entirely away, Publius 
has had a picture taken of her, in which you may behold 



VIII.] MOVEABLES. 271 

a likeness of Issa as true as nature itself. Only place Issa 
and her picture side by side, you would declare that both 
must be real, or both must be painted. — Lib. i. Ep. ex. 

Becker writes, in his G alius, " You know, Issa, Terentia's lap- 
dog, I have had the little imp painted, sweetly reposing upon a soft 
cushion; it was only finished yesterday, and the illusion, I assure 
you, is quite complete: place it by the side of the delicate little 
animal, and you will think either that both are painted, or both alive." 
Becker notices that Martial mentions as other pets of the Roman 
ladies, bubo, cercopithecos, ichneumon, pica, draco, luscinia; the draco 
took the place of a necklace. 

Si gelidum collo nectit Glacilla draconem, 
Luscinise tumulum si Thelesina dedit. 

Waller has a poem on a lady who beatified a pet snake : 
Contented in that nest of snow 
He lies, as he his bliss did know. 



CLXXXVIL 

SWAN. 



The swan modulates sweet songs with a faltering tongue ; 
itself a singer at its own funeral. — Lib. xm. Ep. lxxvii. 

Lord Coke, in his Case of Swans, in his 7th Report, has a ridicu- 
lous passage concerning the vulgar error above echoed ; he lays it down 
that, "by the Common Law, cygnets belong to the owners of the 
cock and hen as tenants in common, and the law thereof is founded on 
a reason in nature ; for the cock swan is an emblem of an affectionate 
and true husband to his wife above all other fowls; for he holdeth 
himself to one female only. For this cause nature hath conferred on 
him a gift beyond all others, that is to die so joyfully, that he sings 
sweetly when he dies ; upon which the poet saith : 

Dulcia defecta modulatur carmina lingua 
Cantator, Cygnus, funeris ipse sui. 



litJi 



272 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

And, therefore, this case of the swan doth differ from the case of 
kine, or other brute beasts (to whom the rule applies of partus sequi- 
tur ventrem)" 

George Lamb, in a poetical preface to his translation of Catullus, 
in which he commemorates poet-lawyers, says that Lord Coke taught 
the law of swans by the aid of poetry : 

As how to swans, their truth's reward, belong 
A joyful death, and sweet expiring song. 



CLXXXVIII. 

MAGPIE. 



A talkative magpie, I salute you, my master, with my 
articulate voice. So long as you do not see me, you will per- 
sist in declaring that I am not a bird. — Lib. xiv. Ep. lxxvi. 

The above epigram is referred to by Becker, in illustration of the 
subject of a Roman house : it shows that it was the practice to 
suspend a bird over the door to give salutations. Rogers notices, in 
his poem on Italy, that it appears from the ruins of Pompeii, an Ave 
was often drawn in Mosaic upon the lower threshold of houses : 

But, lo, engraven on a threshold-stone, 
That word of courtesy so sacred once, 
Hail! 

In another epigram, Martial uses the expression, pica salutatrix; 
in another, he has parrot, which says ave, in another he represents 
the magpie saluting ploughmen : 

Inde salutatus picse respondit arator. 

In a recent number of Blackwood's Magazine on the subject of 
magpies, the writer, after observing on the bird's wonderful imitation 
of the human voice, mentions Martial's mean opinion of it as an 
article of food, at least, if it dies in its cage, where he is speaking of 



VIII.] MOVEABLES. 273 

not being permitted to partake, as Ben Jonson says, " of my lord's 
own meat:" 

Aureus immodicis turtur te clunibus implet, 
Ponitur in caved mortua pica mihi. 



CLXXXIX. 

A BIRD-CAGE. 



If you have such a bird as the one lamented by Lesbia, 
the mistress of Catullus, here it may dwell. — Lib. xiv. Ep. 

LXXVII. 

The above epigram, in conjunction with others of Martial, has 
been quoted to negative the opinion of those who consider Catullus's 
Sparrow as a licentious myth, and to show that Martial understood 
Catullus's poem in a literal sense. George Lamb thus renders the 
epigram : 

E'en such a bird, so fond, so gay, 

As Lesbia loved so well, 
And mourn'd in sweet Catullus' lay, 
In thee might happy dwell. 



cxc. 

TUMBLER. 



The keen tumbler {cards vertagus) does not hunt for 
himself, but for his master ; he will bring you a hare un- 
injured by his teeth. — Lib. xiv. Ep. cc. 

Butler, in his Hudibras, compares his hero to a tumbler, in the 
matter of matrimony : 

Like a tumbler that does play 
His game, and looks another way, 
MART. T 



274 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. 



Until lie seize upon the coney, 
Just so does lie by matrimony. 
But all in vain: her subtle snout 
Did quickly wind his meaning out. 

Dr Nash, in his edition of Hudibras, describes a tumbler as a sort 
of dog that rolls himself in a heap, and tumbles over, disguising his 
shape and motion till he is within reach of the game : he refers to 
the above epigram of Martial for the use of the term vertagus, im- 
porting a tumbling, as applied to a dog. 



CXCL 



RABBIT. 

The Rabbit (cuniculus) delights in inhabiting caves dug 
in the earth: he instructed enemies in the art of making 
secret paths. — Lib, xiii. Ep. lx. 

According to Vegetius, a subterraneous passage in warfare was 
called a cuniculus, from its resemblance to a rabbit's burrow. It 
is possible that Martial's epigram may have suggested the following 
passage in Pope's Essay on Man; especially considering that Pope 
was very much in the habit of adopting ideas from other poets, 
which he expanded and adorned : the personification of Nature, and 
the putting of a lecture into her mouth, seems manifestly borrowed 
from Lucretius. 

Thus then to man the voice of Nature spake; 
Go, from the creatures thy instructions take, 

Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave. 
* * * * 

Here subterranean works, and cities see. 



VIII.] MOVEABLES. 275 

CXCII. 

INSECTS IN AMBER. 

(I.) 
Whilst an Ant wandered in the shade of poplars (Phae- 
tontea), their juicy gum entangled the little animal ; thus, 
although despised during life, it became precious by its 
funeral. — Lib. vi. Ep. xv. 

(IT.) 

Whilst a Viper was creeping among the weeping branches 
of the daughters of the Sun (Heliadmn, poplars into which 
they had been metamorphosed), their juicy gum flowed over 
the struggling animal : when it was astonished at such an 
impediment, it suddenly grew stiff, as if by congelation. 
Take no longer a pride, Cleopatra ! in your royal sepulchre, 
since a viper is more nobly entombed. — Lib. iv. Ep. lix. 

(in.) 

A Bee is buried, and yet shines in the juice of the poplar- 
tree, as though it were inclosed within its own nectar : such 
was a reward worthy of its signal industry ; it may be sup- 
posed that it would have chosen this kind of death. — Lib. iv. 
Ep. xxxii. 

Becker, in his description of the furniture of Gallus's house, re- 
ferring to Martial, writes, "between these were several smaller vessels 
of amber, and two of great rarity; in one of which a bee, and in the 
other an ant, had found its transparent tomb." 

Jeremy Taylor, in a Discourse on the Laws of Jesus Christ, ob- 
serves that, " Our obedience which Christ exacts is a sincere obedience 
of the will, and is not satisfied with an outward wish; a fair tomb of 
amber was too beauteous and rich an inclosure for Martial's viper." 

Considering Pope's familiarity with Martial {supra Ep. xxxix.) 
it is not improbable that the above pretty epigrams may have sug- 
gested the well-known comparison of certain critics on Shakspere and 
Milton to insects in amber : 

t2 



276 



ARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[CH. 



Pretty, in amber, to observe the forms 
Of hairs, or straws, or grubs, or dirt, or worms; 
The things, we know, are neither rich, nor rare, 
But wonder how the devil they got there. 
Cowley may be thought to have had an eye to the second of the 
above epigrams, where he writes of nightingales expiring upon the 
conquering lyre (called, by Crawshaw, Music's Duel) : 

Happy, happy they! whose tomb might be, 
Mausolus! envied by thee! 



CXCIII. 

FLOWERS AND FRUITS. 

(i.) 
Lest your exotics should feel the whiter, and the cold air 
should bite your young plants, your coverings of pellucid 
stone, that are opposed to the windy quarter, admit the sun- 
shine without snow, rain, or dust. But you assign me a 
chamber not completely fenced from the air by any window, 
in which Boreas himself would decline to dwell. Is this the 
habitation you think fit for an old friend? I had rather be 
the guest of one of your rose-trees. — Lib. vm. Ep. xiv. 

(ii.) 
Whoever might have seen Alcinous's gardens, would 
have preferred yours, Entellus ! Lest the envious winter 
should destroy your purple clusters, and the sharp frost nip 
the gifts of Bacchus, your vintage flourishes under a covei'ing 
of transparent gems; the grapes being protected, and, yet, 
not concealed. Thus the shape of woman shines through her 
silken attire, thus pebbles are numbered in a pure stream. 
WTiat limits has Nature assigned to the power of human 
genius ? The barren winter has been commanded to produce 
the fruits of autumn.— Lib. vm. Ep. lxviii. 



VIII. J MOVEABLES. 277 

(III.) 

Winter, O Caesar ! gives you forced (festinatas) chaplets ; 
formerly the rose was a flower of the spring, now it is of your 
bidding. — Lib. xm. Ep. cxxvu. 

(IV.) 

Go, fortunate Rose ! {I,felix Rosa) and with your delicate 
garland gird round the hairs of my Apollinaris ; which re- 
member to encircle when they shall become white after many 
years from this time : so may Yenus ever love you. — Lib. vn. 
Ep. LXXXIX. 

(V.) 

Why do you send me, Polla, untouched chaplets? 
I prefer Roses that you have much handled, (vexatas). — 
Lib. xi. Ep. xc. 

Becker, in an Excursus on the Gardens, in his Gallus, quotes, at 
length, the first three of the above epigrams, with reference to the 
use of greenhouses by the Romans ; and he refers to several others of 
Martial relating to fruits and flowers, directly or incidentally : as 
thus, in the course of one, the poet speaks of lilies in greenhouses : 

Condita sic puro numerantur lilia vitro, 
Sic prohibet tenuis gemma latere rosas. 

Santeuil's inscriptions for the Orangery at Chantilly are similar 
in idea, and, possibly, may have had reference to the above epigrams : 
they were, Hie hy ernes nil juris habent (Here winters have no do- 
minion), on one side of the building, and, on the other, Alienis rnen- 
sibus cestas (Summer in strange months). 

With regard to the fourth epigram, it would be an honour to 
Martial, if we could, as it may be thought we may, attribute to it 
any share in the origin or execution of Waller's beautiful ode, com- 
mencing, "Go, lovely Rose!" In both the Rose is personally 
addressed ; in both, is sent upon an errand, the command to execute 
which is, in both, made the inception of the poem or epigram. 

Some expressions in the fourth epigram (sed olim) may seem to 
indicate that the rose mentioned in it was of wax. The roses in the 



278 MAKTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [OH. 

fifth epigram were natural. Drummond has a sonnet, in which he 
attributes the excelling hue and fragrance of a rose to its having 
been worn and kissed by his mistress. 



CXCIV. 

ONION. 

As often as you eat the shreds which smell of the Taren- 
tine onion, give kisses with your mouth shut. — Lib. xiii. 
Ep. XYIII. 

In the epigrams on Roman suppers it has been seen that the 
onion (porrum) was in great request for sharpening the appetite 
in the gustus. Swift, if he did not borrow from Martial, has re- 
garded onions in the same points of view, both as regards kissing and 
eating, in one of the ditties he wrote for market-women : 

Come, follow me by the smell, 
Here are delicate onions to sell; 

I promise to use you well. 
They make the blood warmer, 
You'll feed like a farmer; 
For it is every cook's opinion, 
No savoury dish without an onion. 
But, lest your kissing should be spoil'd, 
Your onions must be thoroughly boil'd: 

Or else you may spare 

Your mistress a share, 
The secret will never be known; 

She cannot discover 

The breath of her lover, 
But think it as sweet as her own. 



VIII.] MOVEABLES. 279 

cxcv. 

PORCELAIN. 

(I.) 
If you drink your wine warmed, porcelain (rnyrrha) is of 
an excellence suitable to the fiery Falernian, and improves 
its flavour. — Lib. xiv. Ep. cxin. 

(u.) 

We, your guests, Ponticus, drink out of glass, you out of 

porcelain. Why? Lest if our glasses were transparent like 

yours, they would betray the secret of your drinking a 

different kind of wine from what you give us. — Lib. iv. Ep. 

LXXXVI. 

Jeremy Taylor appears to have misconceived the first of the above 
epigrams; in writing of the death of Christ, he quotes the epigram, 
observing, " By the piety of his disciples, and, it is probable, of those 
good women which did use to minister unto him, there was provided 
some wine mingled with myrrh, which, among the Levantines, is an 
excellent and pleasant mixture, and such as, by the piety and in- 
dulgence of the nations, used to be administered to condemned per- 
sons." Raderus, who, in reference to this epigram, has a long dis- 
quisition on the subject of myrrhine vessels, observes, " Hie tamen 
prius velim, nihil de vino myrrhato dictum iri : aliud illud prorsus est 
ab hoc Falerno ex myrrhinis tantum hausto." He says that it was 
usual to drink Falernian out of gold or silver, and that Martial here 
puts in a claim to that honour for porcelain. 

Sir E. Lytton introduces at Pompeii " vases of that lost myrrhine 
fabric, so glowing in its colours, so transparent in its material, which 
were crowned with the exotics of the East." Becker has adorned 
Galluss house with " myrrhine vases." Milton, as quoted under the 
epigram concerning a bazaar, writes of " crystal and myrrhine cups." 



280 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. 



[OH. 



CXCVL 



CHASINGS OF METALS. 



(i.) 



Whose workmanship is displayed in that phiala (a species 
of cup)? Is it that of the skilful Mys, or of Myron? Have 
we here the hand of Mentor, or yours, Polycletus ? It is not 
darkened by any spot, and the purity of its metal has nothing 
to fear from the test of fire. Electrum (four parts gold, a 
fifth silver) glistens with a less yellow metal, and its beau- 
tiful pustules surpass ivory in whiteness. The workmanship 
does not yield to the material ; it may be compared to the 
full moon encompassing the earth with its rays. There is 
chased a goat clad with iEolic (golden) fleece, like that of 
the famous aries of Phryxus, but on which his sister Helle 
might have preferred to have been carried. The Cinyphian 
sheep-shearer would have forborne to shear such beautiful 
hair, and you, Bacchus, would have permitted this goat to 
browse on your vine. A golden Cupid that is riding on the 
goat flaps its back with two wings, and plays on his Palladian 
pipe with his tender mouth ; like as when the dolphin carried 
Arion, no mute burden, over the seas. Let no vulgar slave, 
but your hand, my beautiful cup-bearer, Cestus, imbue this 
excellent gift with nectar. Cestus, the honour of my table, 
mix Setine wine : the lovely boy and the goat he rides both 
appear to me to be thirsty. Let the letters of Rufus assign 
the number of cyathi, for he was the donor of this valued 
present. — Lib. Tin. Ep. li. 



(ii.) 

The lizard carved on your cup by the magic hand of Men- 
tor seems actually alive, and the spectator starts in alarm at 
the silver.— Lib. in. Ep. xli. 



VIII.] MOVEABLES. 281 

(III.) 

Do you behold yon fishes, a beautiful specimen, in toreutic 
work, of the Phidian art? Give them water, and they will 
swim away. — Lib. in. Ep. xxxv. 

(IV.) 

Although I am ruddy from my material being of noble 
Callaic gold, yet I have greater pride in my workmanship, for 
it is that of Mys. — Lib. xiv. Ep. xcv. 

Becker, in his description of the furniture of Gallus's house, writes, 
"The Egyptian saloon surpassed the rest in magnificence. Not a 
single silver or golden vessel stood in it that was not made by the 
most celebrated toreutce, and possessed a higher value from the beauty 
of its workmanship than from the costliness of its material. There 
was a cup by the hand of Phidias, ornamented with fishes that seemed 
only to want water, to enable them to swim : on another was a lizard 
by Mentor, and so exact a copy of nature that the hand almost started 
bach on touching it : then came a broad bowl, the handle of which 
was a ram with a golden fleece more beautiful than that brought by 
Phryxus to Colchis, and upon it a dainty Cupid; the artist's name 
was unknown, but all were unanimous in thinking that Mys and 
Myron, Mentor and Polycletus, had equal claims to the honour of its 
construction." 



CXCVII. 
BASKET. 



I came a barbarous (barbara) basket from the painted Bri- 
tons (pictis Britannis) ; but now Rome prefers to call me her 
own. — Lib. xiv. Ep. xcix. 

Fuller, in his Worthies, remarks that " Martial confesseth baskets 
to have been a British invention, though Rome afterwards laid claim 
thereunto : 

I, foreign basket, first in Britain known, 
And now by Rome accounted for her own." 



282 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

He mentions, as pertinent to the epigram, the making of baskets in 
Cambridgeshire, by the splitting of osiers into small threads that 
were dyed; which, he says, was a manufacture of considerable im- 
portance. Dr Johnson, in his Dictionary, cites, for the etymology of 
the word basket, the first line of the above epigram. 



CXCVIIL 

BELT. 

This is a decoration of warfare, and a mark of gratifying 
honour ; it is worthy to gird the side of a tribune. — Lib. xiv. 
Ep. xxxii. 

Sir Henry Spelman, in his Dissertation on Knighthood ("De 
Milite Dissertatio"), has a chapter on the belting of knights, wherein 
he treats of five purposes which the belt was to serve (munire, ornare, 
distinguere, legionem notare, and arma sustinere). In the course of 
his remarks he writes, " Sic a veterrimis sseculis ad nostram setatem 
(qua maxime floret) perductum vides cingendi hunc morem : De quo 
dicam, ut Martialis, de Parazonio: 

Militise decus hoc, et grati nomen honoris; 
Arma tribunicium cingere digna latus. 

Hinc Cingulum, velut militise dignitatumque compendium, in eisdem 
conferendis optatissimum." 



CXCIX. 

NAPKIN. 



Hermogenes has stolen as many napkins as the thief 
Massa has stolen sesterces; although you watch his right 
hand, and hold his left, he will find means to steal your nap- 
kin (mappam): thus the stag prolongs its life by absorbing 



VIII.] MOVEABLES. 283 

cold snakes ; thus the rainbow diverts the showers which fall 
from the clouds. Lately, when the spectators at the amphi- 
theatre were implored to spare the life of the gladiator My- 
rinus, who had been wounded, Hermogenes contrived to steal 
four napkins. When the preetor was recently about to start 
the horses in the circus by letting fall his chalked napkin 
{mittere mappam), he could not find it, for it had been stolen 
by Hermogenes. His thefts had become so notorious, that 
guests ceased to bring napkins to supper ; in revenge, he stole 
table-cloths; driven from those, he committed thefts on the 
couches, and on the feet of tables. Although the sun is 
shining with intense heat during a spectacle, the awnings are 
withdrawn at the sight of Hermogenes. The trembling sailors 
double-reef their sails whenever Hermogenes appears at any 
harbour. The bare-headed priests of Isis with their sistrums 
((bums) fear for their linen dresses when Hermogenes is in 
sight, and run away. Hermogenes never was known to have 
taken a napkin to a supper; he never was known to have 
come away from a supper without one. — Lib. xn. Ep. xxix. 

Becker holds that each guest at Roman tables brought his own 
mappa; for which he cites as an authority the above epigram, with 
another by Martial, wherein the poet complains of one of his guests 
sweeping off a great part of the delicacies, and sending them home, by 
his slave, in a mappa; upon which the poet wittily observes to his 
guest, that he was not invited for the morrow. Cras te, Cceciliane, 
non vocavi. 

The expression in the above epigram, of mittere mappam, explains 
a passage in Tertullian Be Spectaculis, wherein he says that when the 
praetor had dropt his napkin, a thousand voices shouted misit ("he 
has thrown it"), though the people had all seen it drop, so that 
the information was superfluous. The throwing of the mappa has 
been supposed to have originally signified that the Emperor had 
finished his supper. Dr Smith attributes the general use of mappce 
to the circumstance that the ancients had no forks ; Becker says that 
the Romans, in eating, made great use of the hare finger. 



284 MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. 

CC. 

TABLE UTENSILS AND ATTIRE 

Do you behold yon one-eyed man? He must not be 
disregarded, with contempt : Homer's Autolycus had never a 
more pitchy hand (piceata manus). Be cautious about in- 
viting him as a guest; on such occasions he appears to see 
with both eyes. Your troubled waiters lose their cups and 
their spoons (ligulas); he warms many napkins (mappa) 
in the fold of his dress. He is skilled in niching a pallium 
(upper cloak), if it drop from his neighbour's arm, and he 
often walks from table clad in two surtouts (Icenis duabus). 
He does not blush to steal a lanthorn (lucernd), though it be 
lighted, from a sleeping slave. If he has been foiled in every 
attempt of theft upon his host and the company, he practises 
some stratagem by which he is enabled to steal his own 
slippers (soleas) from his own boy. — Lib. viii. Ep. lix. 

The motto of the 18th number of the Connoisseur, written by the 
Earl of Cork, is taken from the above epigram. 

Nihil est furacius illo, 
Non fuit Autolyci tarn piceata manus. 
Could he have filch' d but half so sly as thee, 
Crook-fingered Jack had scap'd the triple tree. 

The paper is on the subject of the dishonesty of Connoisseurs, of 
whose depredations several amusing particulars are related. 

Becker, in the Excursus of his Gallus, concerning Table Utensils, 
and that on Male Attire, refers to the above epigrams, and several others 
in Martial, who has, indeed, supplied him with .interesting materials 
throughout his book. He mentions the practice alluded to in the 
above epigram, of taking off the soleas on reclining for a meal, and 
putting them on again upon rising from table. It is remarkable 
that Catullus threatens a guest who had stolen some of his table- 
linen with his left hand, that, if he does not restore it, he will be 
punished with three hundred hendecasyllables. 



VIII.] MOVEABLES. 285 

CCI. 

ABOLLA. 

Crispinus did not heed to whom he gave his Tyrian abolla 
(cloak used at suppers) when he changed his dress, and 
resumed his toga. Whoever has got it, we pray thee, restore 
it to its proper shoulders. It is not Crispinus, but his abolla 
requires this of thee ; for it is not every one to whom a dress 
dyed with purple is suitable ; that colour is exclusively appro- 
priated to luxury. If thou art addicted to theft, and feelest a 
craving thirst for gain, take a toga, not an abolla; there will 
be less danger of detection. — Lib. viii. Ep. xlviii. 

There is not much pith in the above epigram, but its application 
has been somewhat curious. Dry den was in the habit of prefixing 
one or more mottos, generally Latin, to his plays and poems: a 
motto which he has prefixed to his play of the Spanish Friar is, 

Ut melius possis fallere, siune togam. 

The principal incident in the play of the Spanish Friar turns on a 
gallant assuming & friar's cloak for the purpose of intrigue. This was 
one of the most popular of Dryden' s dramas, and it is remarkable on 
several accounts. Written during the violence of the persecutions for 
the Popish Plot, its object is to ridicule and stigmatize Popish priests, 
the principal character being a profligate friar. Among other sar- 
casms on the Papists, absolution is called "lulling with church-opium." 
Hence this play forms a singular contrast to subsequent writings of 
Dryden, after he became a convert to Romanism. Moreover, this 
was the only play which James II. prohibited to be acted. After the 
Revolution, it was the first play represented by order of Queen Mary. 
Her Majesty was present at the representation, when several passages, 
specified in Scott's Dryden, from the serious part of the play, were 
applied by the audience in a manner to show their sentiments of the 
queen's unfilial conduct towards her father, James II. The motto 
from Martial is particularly noticed by Dr Langbaine, a contempo- 
rary of Dryden, who published a treatise on the English Dramatic 
Poets, in 1691, wherein he writes, " Whether Mr Dryden intended his 



286 



MARTIAL AND THE MODERNS. [CH. VIII. 



character of Dominic as a satire on the Romish Priests only, or 
on the clergy of all opinions in general, I know not; but sure I 
am that he might have spared his reflecting quotation in the front 
of his play, 

Ut melius possis fallere, sume togam. 

But the truth is, ever since a certain worthy bishop refused orders to 
a certain poet, Mr Dryden has declared open defiance to the whole 
Clergy." 






APPENDIX. 



A few selected instances of modern uses of Martial are here 
appended, which have been omitted in the body of the work, owing 
to various causes. 

The following passages from Martial, with English poetical 
versions, were adopted by Dr Johnson, as mottos for the 51st, 82nd, 
164th, 166th and 188th numbers respectively, of the Rambler: 
Stultus labor est ineptiarum. 
How foolish is the toil of trifling cares. 

Omnia Castor emit, sic net ut omnia vendat. 
Who buys without discretion, buys to sell. 

Vitium, Graure, Catonis habes. 

Gaurus pretends to Cato's fame, 

And proves, by Cato's vice, his claim. 

Pauper eris semper, si pauper es, .ZEmiliane, 

Dantur opes nullis nunc nisi divitibus. 
Once poor, my friend, still poor you must remain, 
The rich alone have all the means of gain. 

Sic te colo, sexte, non amabo. 

The more I honour thee, the less I love. 

Addison has adopted the following passages from Martial, (but 
without giving versions) as mottos for the 47th, 112th, and 260th 
numbers, respectively, of the Spectator : 

Ride, si sapis 

Divisum sic breve net opus. 

Non cuicunque datum est habere nasum. 

Jeremy Taylor has quoted, and commented on the following five 
passages of Martial: 

Notas ergo nimis fraudes, deprensaque furta 

Jam tollas, et sis ebria simpliciter. 
Simpliciter pateat vitium fortasse pusillum, 

Quod tegitur, majus creditur esse malum. 



I 



288 APPENDIX. 

Si sapis, utaris, totis, Colline, diebus, 
Extremumque tibi semper adesse putes. 

Mullorum, leporumque, et suminis exitus hie est, 
Sulfureusque color, carnificesque pedes. 

Rape, congere, aufer, posside, relinquendum est. 
Ben Jonson takes for the motto of his Underwoods, 
Cineri gloria sera venit. 

He quotes, at the end of his Cynthia's Revels, 

Ecce rubet quidam, pallet, stupet, oscitat, odit, 
Hoc volo, nunc nobis carmina nostra placent. 

And in his Masque, entitled Neptune s Triumph, 
Lusus ipse triumphus amat. 

Doering's Dedication of his edition of Catullus to Ernest Duke 
of Saxe Gotha, is according to the model of one by Martial; intro- 
ducing several passages from Martial's works. He appears thus to 
allude to Martial's epigram on Yindex's statue of Hercules : 

Alciden modo Yindicis rogabam, 

Esset cujus opus laborque felix? 

Risit: nam solet hoc, levique nutu 

Greece numquid ait, poeta nescis? 

Inscripta est basis, indicatque nomen. 

" Lysippou," lego. 

Doering has it, 

Die, vates, pater elegantiarum, 
Die, quo vindice tutus ambularisl 
Respondit mihi, leniter susurrans 1 ? 
(Ut solent animse beationum) 
" Ernesto, patriae pio parenti." 

The Author of a poem in the Musoe Anglicanm on the death of 

the Duke of Gloucester, in 1660, appears to have imitated Martial's 

line, 

Yive tuo, frater, tempore, vive meo. 

In the Musm Anglicanoz, it is, 

Quin demptos fratri superaddite fratribus annos. 
Goldsmith has taken the line, 

Ille dolet vere qui sine teste dolet, 



APPENDIX. 289 

as the motto of his City Night Piece, consisting of lamentations over 
London at 2 o'clock A. M. 

Martial's line. 

Hoc rogo, non furor est, ne moriare, mori, 
seems alluded to by Sir J. Denham, in his Cato Major : 

Such madness as for fear of death to die, 
Is to be poor for fear of poverty. 

The well-known line, 

Qui nobis pereunt, et imputantur, 

may have been referred to by Young, in his comparison of Life to a 
Sun-dial : 

Man must compute that age he cannot feel. 

George Lamb refers, in a note, to Martial for Silius Italicus's 
union of poetry with law : 

Proque suo celebrat nunc Helicona foro. 
Lamb has it, 

To Silius' claim did later times afford 
The joint renown of Advocate and Bard. 

Fuller, in his Worthies of Warwickshire, laments the dearth of 
Maecenases, and, in anticipation of the "Farmer's Boy," and the 
" Ettrick Shepherd," quotes from Martial, with a version : 
Sint Msecenates, non deerunt, Flacce, Marones, 

Yirgiliumque tibi vel tua rura dabunt. 
Let not Maecenases be scant, 
And Maros we shall never want ; 
For, Flaccus, then thy country field 
Shall unto thee a Yirgil yield. 

As nothing is quoted from Crashaw in the body of this work, 
his translation of an indifferent Epigram of Martial is here given ; it 
is his only version from the works of that poet ; his own compositions 
are chiefly on divine subjects. 

Si memini, fuerant tibi quatuor, ^Elia, dentes : 

Exspuit una duos tussis, et una duos. 
Jam secura potes totis tussire diebus; 
Nil istic, quod agat, tertia tussis habet. 
mart. u 



290 APPENDIX. 

Four teeth thou hadst, that, ranked in goodly state, 

Kept thy mouth's gate : 
The first blast of thy cough left two alone, 

The second none. 
This last cough, ^Elia, coughed out all thy fear, 
Thou'st left a third cough now no business here. 

Rogers, in his poem of Italy relies upon a line of Martial, 
Psestano violas, et cana ligustra colono, 
for the scent of violets at Psestum. 

The air is sweet with violets, running wild 
'Mid broken friezes, and fallen capitals; 
Sweet, as when Tully, writing down his thoughts, 
Sailed slowly by, two thousand years ago, 
For Athens ; where a ship, if north-east winds 
Blew from the Psestan gardens, slacked her course. 
Fuller, in his Worthies, when relating the Proverbs of Notting- 
hamshire, in which county lies the village of Gotham, cites a line 
from Martial, 

Abderitanae pectora plebis habes, 
in illustration of a proverbial saying which is well known under 
several modifications, but which he thus gives, 

"As wise as a man of Gotham." 



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